11/07/2025
Can I make living under a walnut tree ... less annoying?
So, a little backstory: my wife and I bought a home in 2021 with a huge black walnut tree in the backyard. It's a beautiful tree that offers a ton of shade in the hot summer months, and my two daughters adore the swing we have hung from it.
But, I will confess, this walnut is an enormous pain in the ass. It drops pollen in the spring. It drops walnuts by the hundreds (if not thousands) in the summer. And then it drops leaves in the fall. I spend, solidly, six months a year cleaning up after it. And, listen, if it just dropped nuts, that'd be one thing. They're easy enough to pick up. But it gets mobbed by squirrels in high branches, gnawing on the nuts and dropping untold amount of walnut pieces and bits of walnut fruit and detritus all over our yard, staining everything black and covering everything with crud. We spend probably $3000 hiring an arborist to trim and prune it every 2-3 years ... assuming we live in the house 15 years, we'll spend $20,000 just maintaining it.
Is there anything I can do to make this tree ... less a of a hassle? There is, I will not lie, some small part of me that wants to cut it down and plant a maple or something instead. But I recognize that there is something unjust about removing a big healthy mature tree. But can anything stem the tide of annoyance? Do fruit inhibitors work? Can I prune it more aggressively to at least keep it off our back deck and the house itself (which it will grow over soon enough, I've no doubt.) I have a real love/hate relationship with this tree and could use some advice.
