For months now I've been watching a beautiful plant with silver trunks grow in the front yard.

At first it was small and thin and I didnt really know if it would survive where it's perched at but it did and the other week it started flowering.

I didn't know what it was until today when someone from my gardening group posted a photo of her flowers, which looked exactly like mine and she called it a wattle tree.

Wattle Trees

There are over 1300 species of Acacia (Wattle) all over the world and close to 1000 of them can be found in Australia. In fact, Australia's national floral emblem is the Golden Wattle and apparently, just learnt this today while researching, September 1 is Wattle Day.

Why is this not a Public Holiday?

It's even said that the wattle was the inspiration for Australia's green and gold. (Now it's starting to make sense.)

Wattles are remarkable plants. They grow as shrubs or trees up to 12 metres. They are great producers of tannin; the bees, butterflies and birds all benefit from this tree, eating it, growing on it. Parts of the tree was used by Aborigines to make medicine for colds, toothaches even burns. On some types of wattles, the gum is even edible AND, get this, the leaves were even used for smudging.

Australian natives, well trees in general, especially eucalyptus trees (the trees that make our mountains look blue) in the Blue Mountains are protected. Meaning we can't just cut down any tree once it gets to a specific height or trunk width ~ unless you're in a 10/50 zone. So if I want to get rid of this, or alternately if I want to move it, I need to do it now as it's close to 3m in height already.

Why move it?

(I found another wattle tree in the token lawn area!)

My front yard doesn't really have a lawn. I call this the token lawn because it's at the front but it's not your standard front lawn because it's off to the side, forgotten and never needs mowing. Weeding yes, mowing no.

And then there's this... 🙈

I can so see that landing on Hubby's car. If it was bang smack in the middle of token lawn I wouldnt even be writing this now. But it's not, it's teethering on the edge and I honestly dont even know where it found room for it's roots.

It's glorious, great for the native wildlife and has a lot of uses, and I really don't want to lose it.

It's only a baby now, can you imagine it 6 months from now? I'm thinking time is of the essence here.

(@rustle checking out the situation...)

Any suggestions? Do I let it grow, cut it down, dig it out? If I let it grow it will only be so I can harvest the seeds so I can plant more in spots where I don't have to worry about it.

I'm also thinking maybe I plant the new ones in first and then cut the tree down so I'm not taking from native wildlife.....?

Pop your thoughts in the comments!

❤ Arly

Ps. Happy Monday Steemit!