Pools and the surrounding landscape should create a relaxing, luxurious space where you can entertain after a long hard-working day. Having plants close to the swimming pool adds to the allure of the whole area. However, there are some varieties that are better suited for pools while others that will cause more problems for the pool area than they are worth. Here, we’ve rounded up what plants you shouldn’t install around a pool area.
Although they own their beauty, having some properties that make them can’t become ideal parts for your pool. Some plants with extensive root systems can damage pool walls and plumbing. Others with thorns such as bamboo and dwarf arborvitae, will injure people and make navigating around the pool difficult. Or, crape myrtle, bottlebrush that shed excessive leaves, pollen, or flowers will make cleaning the pool a real headache. Instead of spending your time playing in the water, you will spend it fetching debris out of the water. If you want to avoid this sound, keep the following plants very far away from your swimming pool.
#1 Bamboo
Source: Gardeningknowhow
Bamboo is a tropical plant that grows quickly and spread profusely. This plant is a great option for a tropical, Asian, or Japanese garden theme, but if you have a pool, plant it away from that area to keep its leaves blowing into the water.
#2 Bougainvillea
Source: Gardenia
Bougainvillea comes in many vibrant colors, ranging from white to yellow and orange, and from pink to red and purple. It is a plant that produces quickly, so if the vigorous growing vine is near your pool, that’s double the number of papery bracts you get to clean out of your pool.
#3 Flowering Cherry or Plum Tree
Source: Kyuhoshi
Flowering Cherry or Plum Tree shed their blossoms year after year. If you have a backyard pool, the blossoms will inevitably alight on the water, and maybe you will have to sweep them up.
#4 Acacia
Source: Feedipedia
Acacia is known as a shrub that displays creamy-yellow clusters of flowers from late winter to summer. When the acacia releases its flower clusters, it is the time they spread all over your yard and into your pool.
#5 Honeysuckle
Source: Gardenersworld
Honeysuckle is a type that belongs to vines and shrubs. It has fragrant flowers and red or purple berries that attract birds. Although it is a beautiful plant, it can become invasive, along with littering your yard and pool with spent blooms.
#6 Dwarf Arborvitae
Source: Gurneys
Dwarf Arborvitae produces leaves that resemble needles, so you should grow this plant away from your pool by growing them in a bed closer to the house or in containers on the patio.
#7 Azalea
Source: Gardeningknowhow
Azalea is a favorite of many gardeners for its stunning and often profuse flowers, long bloom time, and long life. However, you shouldn’t grow this plant near your pool as it is either evergreen or deciduous. It tends to drop all of its leaves in the fall.
#8 Tulip Tree
Source: Gardeningwithcharlie
The Tulip Tree is a fast-growing tree that can shoot up to 80 feet, spreading to 40 feet wide. Tulip-shaped yellow flowers appear in spring; blossoms tend to appear at the top of the tree. When its leaves drop into the water, they get soggy leading to end up clogging cleaners.
#9 Crape Myrtle
Source: Arborgate
Crape Myrtle has pretty flowers in white along with vibrant shades of pink and red during the summer months. However, this is a big problem when little tiny flowers fill the pool surface could clog the skimmers.
#10 Bottlebrush
Source: Yates
Bottlebrush is naturally dense and compact and produces red bottlebrush-looking flowers. When the flowers sheds, all the individual red needle-like parts scatter into many pieces. So if it is grown near the pool, the wind will blow them into the water surface.