Poplars are not dirty such as the weeping willows that drop dead branches in the Spring, however...

 1. WEAK TOPS. Big (70ft.) trees tend to be brittle and some of their tops can be broken by high winds. I have had one tree lose its top. Most of the time I have had about 600 trees growing in my property (1.3 acre lot).

 2. FUZZ. When I purchased my first cuttings, I was told they would not give fuzz. They lied. Adult female trees (about 10 to 12 years old) will drop fuzz that resemble cotton. That stuff flies all over starting in early Summer. If you have a swimming pool close to these trees, be aware, that the fuzz is very annoying and forces you to skim your pool more often. It can clog up your filter. Fuzzies can also be very dangerous. If their density is high, and a flame just happens to be applied to them, they will ignite with incredible speed. Some of the clones I distribute are FEMALES while the great majority are MALES and then there are the ones that I still don't know what they are. There is a place for female clones mainly for the paper industry. For information on gender, please see the page on Choices
Another point of view on fuzzies

3. STICKY BUDS. Plant trees away from your house. In early spring, when trees start to grow, some of the buds will fall to the ground where you pick up with your shoes and track inside the house. The buds are very sticky and can give you some trouble removing them from a fine carpet... to put it mildly, your wife will kill you. On the serious side, not all clones drop these sticky buds, and if they do, all danger of getting buds stock on your shoes are gone by the end of April (SE PA.)

 4. ROOTS. The roots of older poplars surface after about 16 or so years making it difficult to mow the lawn. I have seen roots sprouting as far away as 50 feet from the trees and they will reappear every time you mow the lawn. I have received email also from people who are very concerned with the roots they have found growing as far as 80 feet from the trees. This seems to happen only when the trees are getting close to 20 years of age.

 To remove those roots I have used my trusty hatchet, cutting at both ends of the visible root and pulling it out of the ground. In some cases I had to fill the void with more dirt, but it was not a big deal.

 5. CANKER DISEASE (Dothichisa populea, Cytospora Canker and Cytospora chrysosperma) -All the above latin came from a book. The real stuff is in my back yard. It showed up all of the sudden (September'98) on a 12-year old tree. The trunk of the tree just shrivels almost at ground level, keeping the nutrients from traveling up the trunk. The tree just started dropping all its leaves, and the ones that have not fallen turned yellow and will fall with the next wind. The advice found is to cut it, and burn it. They also tell you to spray the trees around it with a Bordeaux mixture. I have seen this in the past but I did not pay any attention because it never killed a whole tree, it always affected only small branches. Since it is a FUNGUS disease you must destroy the source and spray to prevent the disease from spreading- They don't tell you that, you must read between the lines.
The incidence of this disease is so rare, at least here, that it really does not do much damage. The tree that was affected already is on my wood pile.

6. COLORS IN THE FALL. You will not see much of this from poplars. At least not from the clones I have here. The leaves just turn darker, rust, and then fall off. Not a showy tree at all.

7. Neighbors ... They can be pesky... until you give them some cuttings!

As I think of other problems with these trees, I will add them to this page.