Messy Mimosa

Our Mimosa tree (Albizia julibrissin) is blooming.  The hummingbirds are flitting in and around the tree, spending as much time chasing each other as they do drinking nectar from the open flowers.  The feeder hanging outside the kitchen window, the source of prior hummingbird battles, is now largely ignored.

Fully leafed out and blooming, the tree is beautiful.

View of the canopy of the Albizia julibrissin in bloom

Close-up of bloom

View from my home office window

I love the tree's open structure and large canopy.  I love the shade it provides to the back patio during the hot days of summer.  I like the ferny leaves that close up when the sun goes down.  I like the fluffy, bright pink flowers.

What I don't like is the litter that drops continuously from the tree.  There's really no end to it.  Only the form of the litter changes with the seasons.  From the time foliage began to appear on the tree about 6 weeks ago, the tree began dropping small yellow leaflets.

You're probably thinking that doesn't look bad.  These little stems shatter into pieces at the slightest touch.  They can't be raked up.  And sweeping them up is almost as difficult as the leaflets fly about with the slightest shift in the air.  My husband helped me clean up the porch prior to the arrival of guests on Thursday - we had to resort to using his shop vacuum.  

A small portion of the Albizia leaf debris we picked up with the shop vac

Although flowering has just begun, the blossoms are already dropping - en masse.

Still, this is the best period of my ongoing love/hate relationship with this tree.  Once the summer heat becomes persistent, the flowers dry up and blackish brown lumps fall all over the lawn and patio.  Leaf litter increases.  In the fall, seedpods develop and, almost simultaneously, begin to follow the leaves to the ground.

Mimosa in early spring, naked except for numerous seedpods, still clinging to its branches (waiting their turn to fall)

Lightweight, the seedpods blow everywhere.  The seedpod litter continues through the fall into spring until the cycle begins anew.  The spring and summer months also bring Mimosa seedlings, which appear in the strangest places - between the cracks in the patio stones, among my vegetables, in succulent pots, down at the bottom of the slope - as well as every garden bed.  

I've always hated the blowers used by lawn service companies but, after 2 years of trying to manage the litter produced by this tree, I'm planning to get one.   In this situation, a little noise pollution is an acceptable trade-off for a semblance of order that will allow me to more thoroughly enjoy the time I spend on the back patio.

Gardening, by definition, isn't a neat enterprise.  Do you live with or manage your garden messes?