Many trees have interesting foliage and make beautiful specimens in the landscape. They also create a significant mess either through dropped blossoms or fruit, peeling or shedding bark, or insect pests. It’s important to perform sufficient research before selecting a tree.
Bradford Pear
Stately and beautiful when it’s in bloom, spent flower petals will litter the ground and the blossoms are smelly. It’s a prolific self-sower that easily overwhelms wooded areas and chokes out native species. Many states have enacted bans due to its highly invasive nature. When it crosses with a regular pear, it develops thorns that can puncture tires. The trees have weak branches.
Weeping Willow
Many people like the graceful growth habit of weeping willows, but the trees bring a lot of drama to the landscape. The roots are aggressive growers that seek out water sources – including underground water and sewer lines. The roots can destroy the lines, crack foundations and break sidewalks. Branches become weaker as the tree ages and prone to breakage. They attract a variety of insect pests that leave their own messy mark on the environment.
Mimosa
Puffy pink flowers and frilly leaves make the mimosa a charming tree. However, it’s short lived, weak wooded, has invasive roots, and is prone to multiple diseases and insects. They’re also prolific self-seeders.
Ginkgo Biloba
One of the oldest living species in the world, they make beautiful shade trees with golden fall foliage – as long as it’s a male ginkgo. The female ginkgo tree develops seeds with a distinctly unpleasant odor. The cherry-sized fruit is messy and malodorous. It’s the only descendant of a species that lived before the dinosaurs and there are six known ginkgo trees known to have survived the bombing of Hiroshima.
Red Oak
A red oak tree can live up to 300 years. They have invasive roots, shed a large number of leaves, and produce acorns that litter the ground in autumn and are capable of denting car roofs when they fall. That have a large number of pollen-bearing catkins that fall to the ground and exacerbate allergies.
Sycamore
The trees shed strips of bark and twigs, drop an enormous number of very large leaves in the autumn, and have hard, spiky seed balls that fall to the ground. The seed pods are moderately allergenic and contain a toxic agent. It has an aggressive root system able to damage sidewalks and home foundations, and can develop large surface roots that impede mowing. It’s prone to heartwood rot and the anthracnose disease that can cause massive leaf drops.
RCH Landscaping is a full-service landscape company based in Boca Raton, Florida. We design, install and maintain Commercial and Residential landscapes all around Boca Raton, Delray Beach, and The Palm Beach areas. Our team of highly skilled landscape technicians has an undisputed track record of creating and maintaining beautiful commercial and residential landscapes all over South Florida.
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