Do people in WNC plant boxelders? Are they likely to sprout at fences?

Nature Talk
1

There’s a boxelder that I’ve observed several times (check “same individual over time”) because it’s on the lot line of the church I attend. I think it’s wild, but someone’s marked it cultivated a few times. The church bought the lot in 2006. I asked someone who I think has been part of the congregation since then, and he doesn’t know where the tree came from. I observed it again today and checked along the fence; there are other boxelders, which are smaller, and may have sprouted from this one’s seeds. Along the fence, there are also a Bradford or Callery pear and some sort of thornbush; a previous survey showed an iron along the fence but I couldn’t get to the iron because of the thornbush.

Is it more likely that someone put the tree there, or that it grew from a seed that hit the fence? If you live nearby, you may want to visit the site and see for yourself.

2

Looks wild to me. Can’t really speak to what people in NC do, but here in Michigan they are often considered “weed trees” in part because of their annoying tendency to pop up in fence lines, where they quickly grow into the fence and are a hassle to clear without damaging a chainsaw on the metal. I’m personally rather fond of them, but I’ve never heard of anyone planting one on purpose.

Edited to add: I don’t think it’s so much that the seeds hit the fence, as that the seeds land everywhere, but seedlings can’t survive in areas that are mowed, grazed, plowed, or heavily shaded by other trees, so they end up in rows along fence lines.

3

I know they are a problem here as they are hosts to the beetle which is decimating our trees.

For which we have various projects.

4

That definitely appears to be Acer negundo! I also think it’s wild, given the location.

Plants that utilize anemochory will usually congregate along natural and unnatural barriers and borders. This is why you can often see a lot of Salix and Populus bordering farm fields. Acer negundo is often spotted along fences here, usually half eaten them.

As another said, there is an elemental of survivorship bias at play. The lawn would likely be covered in them if it wasn’t mowed or grazed. I will say though, even when given a forest bordering a fence, they’re still more likely in the fence than the forest it seems!

5

Probably just grew along the fenceline. GoogleEarth lets you flip back through old aerial photos and you can see trees coming and going along the fence over the years. Mowing and/or cattle will get anything in the open.