Hybrid Poplar cuttings - Ok to plant now?

[chapster]

I am rather impatient, and I am looking at Hybrid Poplar to plant alongside some slower growing trees to quickly (relatively) get some shade on some property. My questions are as follows:

With this cool and rainy weather we have been having, would it be safe to go ahead and plant cuttings at this time of the year? I read the sticky post regarding planting trees, but since this is not a rooted plant, just a cutting- don't know if it makes a difference.

And, any nurseries or companies (or individuals) have Hybrid Poplar - a quality species - available? Recommendations welcome.

Thanks much!

John C.

[Dirt Doctor]

You should never plant hybrid poplars even as temporary trees. Shantung maple grows almost as fast and is a durable tree. Bur oak and white ash are also pretty fast growing.

[chapster]

hg wrote: You should never plant hybrid poplars even as temporary trees. Shantung maple grows almost as fast and is a durable tree. Bur oak and white ash are also pretty fast growing.

Ok, I will certainly follow your advice. (BTW: My kids got me your Organic Gardening book for fathers day - so I hear. Will find out tomorrow)

Looked up these trees in your "Plants of the Metroplex". Shangtung Maple was not in there, but found it on the Internet.

White Ash was not in this book, either. But found it on the Internet.

All of these trees look better for style and branching out as compared to the Hybrid Poplar. The Bur Oak looks really nice, and it long lived AND fast growing? Sweet.

Thanks much for the feedback, I will plant this fall.

John C.

[planosmith]

I thought these would be good trees because they came from the Arbor Day Society. Please don't plant these. While they do grow quickly, they send up numerous suckers and the roots grow close to the top and often lay on the top of the soil. We planted these at our last house and I saw suckers coming up 2 or 3 yards away. Also one was inadvertantly planted over the main water line and it tapped into it. Boy, did that tree grow quickly. (And so did our water BILL ! ) We had to reroute the water line.

I also planted them at our current house -- from cuttings at the other house. We recently spent MANY hours cutting out some of the roots that were on the surface (no harm to the trees....darn it). Now I am looking at getting rid of them and it is a problem. Wish I had known about the Dirt Doctor site before then !!!

I am thinking about the Shumard Oak as replacements. Check out some of the other posts about trees that work well in this area.

[planosmith]

We did this about 8 years ago and are now planting something else and will get rid of the poplars in about a year. They have invasive roots, often on the surface of the yard. One even tapped into our incoming water pipe and grew like crazy before we discovered the problem and rerouted the main water line into the house (what a water bill THAT was !!).

While they do grow quickly, they are not worth the trouble.

[Gar]

I agree with planosmith, they are some of the worst trees. I would never plant any. My mother had one about 15 feet from her house. one root got so long it grew under the foundation and up the pipe to her toilet and down into the sewer system. She had to have a plummer clean out the sewer line because it was plugged up. When she found out it was the tree, she asked me to cut it down and dig up as many roots as I could. This was an expensive repair bill. These trees will find a source of water, no matter how far away. Sorry for the bad response, but just trying to impart some wisdom. Don't want you to have to got thru what my mother did.