Cedar Pollen Woes

Cedar trees are pollinating and causing distress for those who are allergic to the pollen.  I've never had a clear sense for what time of year this usually occurs, so this year I'm writing it down here so I can check back for it in later years.

My nephew, Joseph, sent a picture of a pollen cloud he photographed at their place. It looks like white smoke or dust.  I remember once seeing it at school in the rows of cedars lining the north and west sides of the property.  The "dust cloud" was downright impressive.

Eastern Redcedar is the most common windbreak tree planted here.  Sometimes it spreads into pastures and becomes a nuisance, but, for the most part, it's a welcome landscape feature.

We're on the eastern edge of the area where the Western Juniper is more adapted (read:  can survive in lower rainfall areas).  It's less ideal as a windbreak tree, however, and often is shorter-lived.  Knowing what cedars to plant is one of the difficulties of living smack in the middle of a number of climate transition zones.  East and West it's rainfall amounts and north and south it's temperature and day-length issues.  The major difficulty, of course, is that season to season and even day to day variations can be quite extreme, so "nothing" is quite comfortable here--except for the hardy people who have learned to adapt.  Sometimes without complaint.

In 1984 we planted an Eastern redcedar windbreak at our Trail West place.  The first few years we watered the trees faithfully, dragging very long hoses to all corners of the property.  For many years they've taken care of themselves.  This spring some of those trees look dead--apparent casualties of the drought we've experienced the past few years.