May be moving to MT...but have ??s about ...

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by jessaka

There is no such thing as a good box elder. i have cut most of mine down that were small enough to cut down.

[laughing] Maybe I'm weird, but I like 'em. Yeah, they attract aphids, but they also attract ladybugs -- in hordes like you'll see nowhere else. Which take care of the aphids right quick.

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[Mattie Jo]

when the ice storms came they were the first trees to break in half. that is why i don't like them. they also attrack boxelder beetles, but those are cute, and while they got into my house I just let them be. I like ladybugs.

[Reziac]

Never saw 'em break down in Great Falls, and I walked past 'em to school all the time.. might be in recent years they don't grow as strong because of the drought. Elms in the desert are like that -- they never really get enough water and are very brittle, unlike elms that never know drought. (Pines and elms are the two most durable trees in the high desert, oddly enough, other than saltcedars (tamarisk). -- Bring a saltcedar to a wet area and instead of being an overgrown bush, they get HUGE.)

Never saw box elder bugs in GtF either, but we had plagues of 'em in Bismarck ND -- they'd literally cover whole walls of your house! Harmless, but a nuisance. Funny thing, we had elms there, but no box elders!

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[NativeMontanan]

The sugars/sap stays up too long in maples. The bitter cold will actually freeze the maple sap and explode the tree. Maples are far and few between here. They are beautiful trees and the few that dot some homeowners yards are gorgeous right now.

Most of our color for the fall is from golden quaking aspen and wild rose bush, some willow and dogwood along stream beds. I never understood "fall colors" until I lived in Michigan for a few years. Gorgeous.

[NativeMontanan]

Well, though I don't like box elder trees because they are messy scrubby trees, a lot of Montana people will take any tree that will grow. Cottonwoods and willow near water, and elms, box elder and russian olive out on the plains seem to work as good windbreaks. Blue spruce/Colorado spruce work good, but they take forever to grow.