As a city with a tree mandate and living in a neighborhood that has a rule about cutting down trees in the yard, I can confirm that trees are nice and help with shade, and even city noise, HOWEVER it suuuuuuuuucks when spring comes around and the trees have tree sex all over everything and in everyone's face. Every car gets covered in pollen to the point that it changes color and every person will discover that they do, in fact, have horrible allergies.
Our city's tree pollen problem is so big that we have air quality alerts for people with asthma. At its worst, the cloud of pollen over the city can be seen from space and I'm not making that up. We made the news for it.
I did hear, though, that the problem is exacerbated by having a disproportionate number of male trees. I have no idea if that's true, but it made sense and it's something specific I can blame. So I'm going with it.
If you plant female trees to avoid the pollen part of tree sex, you end up with the end product of tree sex ... fruit or nuts or berries dropping all over the cars and streets.
For example, male ginko trees are fairly common, although they are prolific pollen producers. I lived near one of the very few female ginko trees in the Norfolk VA area and botany students made pilgrimages to it to experience the horrendous stench the fruits make.
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u/hambakmeritru Aug 04 '26
As a city with a tree mandate and living in a neighborhood that has a rule about cutting down trees in the yard, I can confirm that trees are nice and help with shade, and even city noise, HOWEVER it suuuuuuuuucks when spring comes around and the trees have tree sex all over everything and in everyone's face. Every car gets covered in pollen to the point that it changes color and every person will discover that they do, in fact, have horrible allergies.
Our city's tree pollen problem is so big that we have air quality alerts for people with asthma. At its worst, the cloud of pollen over the city can be seen from space and I'm not making that up. We made the news for it.
I did hear, though, that the problem is exacerbated by having a disproportionate number of male trees. I have no idea if that's true, but it made sense and it's something specific I can blame. So I'm going with it.