Snow? In May? Again?
By Gattina
- 23 May, 2012
- 8 likes
I know it looks like snow - quite alarming really, but this is the season for "pioppe" - great clouds of poplar seed. It is a big problem in Bologna where piles of the stuff build up at the roadsides, looking for all the world like piles of snow. I know the weather is bad, but really.......
Comments on this photo
You had me worried!
23 May, 2012
Not nearly as worried as I was, Lil! Well, it's still coming down in drifts, and were it not for the fact that the wind has blown a lot of it away, the lawn would be quite white.
Not sure of the answer to that, Meadow, but I know it plays havoc with the traffic in the city when it gets really bad.
23 May, 2012
I've never heard of that before. We get drifts of goat willow seed from the school site, but nothing to stop the traffic!
23 May, 2012
At least you don't have to shovel it...
23 May, 2012
In Bologna it piles up at the side of the road and on the pavements: they get these little street sweeping vehicles with brushes at the front, and they clear it with those. That's what holds up the traffic. People have been known, on the worst days, to have to keep their windscreen wipers going. I don't think shovelling is out of the question. It gets all over your hair and your clothes and in your mouth and eyes. All in all it's a B***** nuisance. It seems to be particularly bad this year.
The moral of this story is - don't plant poplars in city centres!
23 May, 2012
:( :( :(
My wisteria is causing 'snow' here today due to the winds...... :(
24 May, 2012
Oh Dear!
24 May, 2012
It was sweet while it lasted! :))
24 May, 2012
My lilac did the same ... with the winds
This poplar thing is amazing Gattina, Never seen or heard of that before!
Do they ever germinate if you ever miss a few and leave them on the lawn. We get loads of ash seeds and they just keep popping out of everywhere ... I must have uprooted the equivalent of a forest and a half this year alone!!! LOL Grrrr.
25 May, 2012
You know, if even 1% germinated, we'd have a blinking forest out there: I can't understand it. Mind you - we get thousands of tiny seedlings in the borders and vegetable beds that don't have the opportunity to get an identity before I blast them. It's an uphill struggle.
26 May, 2012
I remember my grandmother saying that without gardeners, Britain would be a sycamore forest! (But wasn't it gardeners that introduced them in the first place? Lol!)
26 May, 2012
We get them too, Gattina, but not quite as badly! Our front porch and the rear corner of our patio seem to be where all the 'blown about' stuff seems to end up, so it's just a matter of clearing out small mounds of fluff that's collected up other stuff along the way! Like you, I'm constantly clearing off seedlings of things I KNOW I've not sown, so .. no Poplar trees in my garden!
30 May, 2012
It's annoying - the compost in all my pots and tubs looks as if it's sporting a healthy crop of mould, and all it is is this pesky damp tree fluff!
30 May, 2012
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Gosh!
23 May, 2012