Hanging Gardens of BLMH

We have hanging gardens in our HOA. Many residents have planters on their patios and decks, However, nature too comes to our aid.

This is one of the years that the maple trees drop an abundance of seeds. These "helicopters" can be seen spinning throughout the day in the spring. This does happen every year, However, about every other or every third year the trees simply go wild and there are seeds everywhere, many in the gutters of the buildings. I can't say why this is, Perhaps the trees rest for a year or so.

This year was an abundant year. Maintenance has been intermittently cleaning gutters for several weeks. In fact, it doesn't make sense to do this while the seeds are falling, because whatever is scooped out is quickly replenished by a new supply.

How many gutters do we have? By my guess, about 2 miles of gutters. Yes, you did read that correctly. Our little HOA has two miles of gutters. These have been filled with many tens of thousands of seeds.

We're reaching a finale here, and the maples have exhausted most of their seedlings. However, with the plentiful rain, those seeds are attempting to become trees.  They add to the hanging gardens in our HOA. Not to be outdone, the pines have been dropping cones. In fact one owner complained because these were littering the ground. Yep, living in a forest can be a real burden. Ha, ha! Now, are we really a forest? No. This HOA has about 15 acres of landscaped turf and perhaps 700 tress. It's a manicured environment. No wonder some of the residents complain when there are pine cones littering the property! Why, how inconsiderate of nature.