Burls in My Backyard: A Cautionary Tale for Desert Dwellers

[Martin Braun]

With impending rain, I decided to pull the weeds in my backyard instead of spray them. So I got out my trusty length of rebar which is ground to a point, and started poking the stones & pulling up the weeds.

In one particular spot, for the last 5 years, there's an Acacia shoot that always sprouts up, and I pull it, but it always breaks off. This year, I decide to dig down further. I poked and proded, and noticed there seemed to be part of a small stump there. Hmmm... that's odd, I don't recall the original landscape plans ever mentioning an Acacia to be planted here. I dug further, and pryed what I thought was a small stump out. I started pulling on the two main roots.

Turns out, this wasn't a small stump at all. The Acacia on the easement about 25' away, had sent a root all the way over to sip moisture from my pool wall. Every 3 or 4 feet or so, there is a small burl. The first one I pulled up was maybe 3 or 4 inches in diameter. The others are about 2 inches, maybe 3. I'm thinking if I had left them in there another 5 years, maybe they could have been 6 to 8 inches in diameter. So instead of bowl or hollow form blanks, I have more bottle stopper wood.

So, if you have an Acacia tree that gets cut, may be worth while to follow the roots and see if there's any burls in the soil.

I know, no pictures, didn't happen. So I'll try to get some pics tomorrow night before the sun goes down.

[charlie knighton]

cool, tree gota do what a tree gota do

[Jarrod McGehee]

Ya I've seen and attempted to turn some black acacia until it went into orbit when it flew off the chuck and it looks nice. I'd like to see some burls of the stuff. Hopefully we see some pics soon. Nice find

[Brett Baldwin]

Hmmm....that's a place you wouldn't think to look normally. It makes sense that the root system on trees here would be more extensive than wetter places. I wouldn't think the root would have grown significantly in jsut a few years. It would be decades I'd think. You probably got them as big as you were likely to get anytime soon.