Is an eastern cottonwood a good tree to plant in Indiana?
Think hard about it — eastern cottonwood is on the hazard list in central Indiana. Native and common on central-Indiana floodplains and wet ground — the White River, Fall Creek, and Eagle Creek corridors and the low back corners of newer subdivisions. It volunteers freely around detention basins and on the high-water-table lots where topsoil was stripped, which is precisely where it ends up too close to a house.
What you'd be signing up to clean up
Female trees release the cotton in late May and June — drifts of it in window screens, AC condenser coils, pool filters, and along fence lines for two to three weeks straight. The rest of the year it never really stops: twigs and small branches after every wind event, big leathery leaves in fall, and catkins in spring.
Where to keep it away from
Shallow, wide, and actively water-seeking — this is the species that genuinely gets into sewer laterals and field lines, and extension guidance is flatly not to plant it anywhere near sewer or water lines. In central Indiana's older neighborhoods with clay-tile laterals, a cottonwood within about 50 ft is the prime suspect any time a homeowner is paying for repeat root cutting.
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