06/06/2026
Moscow actually has two different cottonwood trees and most people don't know they're separate species. The one along the creek corridors — Paradise Creek, the draws that feed into it — is native black cottonwood, and it's the heavy producer. The other shows up as a street tree and yard tree around town, and it's lighter on the fluff.
The southwest wind we get off the Palouse doesn't just move the fluff a few feet. It distributes it across whole neighborhoods and stacks it against anything vertical — fences, foundation plantings, screen doors, north-facing siding. That's why your situation might look completely different from your neighbor's two blocks over, depending on what's between you and the creek.
Have you ever noticed your fluff situation is worse on one particular side of the property than everywhere else?