For a short time I worked for a man who had a line of those things between his property and the one next door. I soon learned to hate and despise them! I like the fragrance of the blooms, it's quite lovely, but all other aspects were so MESSY! They were either shedding leaves, bark, spent blooms or seeds at any given time. When (not if) the leaves got wet, then were a heavy mat, only manageable with a pitch fork.

There are some jobs that one takes on not knowing the full extent, which almost no amount of money will make tolerable. So it was with that one. (Not to mention the Huge dog that ate sprinklers which I then had to fix for no extra money!) I kept raising my price to do that place until I was fired.

I took my final check to the bank with a smile.
(';')

 

When we first came to our current place we had 7 ginormous gums. A couple of them where varieties that continually shed bark, so every time we had wind there was a shower of bark and debris to clean up. We took out 4 and another one died of old age. So now just two well away from the house and we planted a small variety (only 10 metres high) to replace the dead guy.

We powered the fire places in the little town I lived in for a couple of winters, with the timber from the big cull. They guys that do the tree climbing and felling earn their $, but they seem to love their work.

If I had an opportunity to remove them as non native plants in Ca. I would do it. You may as well leaves drums of fuel around in your bush , which from what Ive seen needs no encouragement to burn.

 

When I lived in town, just before I moved out here to the Stix, one of my customers had me cut down a Eucalyptus that was growing too close to her house for her comfort. It wasn't all that big as these trees go, but she was rightly afraid of the fire hazard caused by all the droppings.

I heated with a fireplace then so took wood home, but only wood bigger than my wrist; amounted to a little over a closely stacked cord and that one tree kept my warm all the next winter.

I learned about chimney fires with that wood. Sounded like a jet engine going up the chimney! If it hadn't been raining I might have caught the roof afire; or worse yet, someone else's roof.

There's a "volunteer" (planted by birds) eucalyptus growing up the road, but it's on someone else's property so I can't kill it much as I'd like to (I always feel better after I've killed something).
(';')