Part of the beauty of having a pool in your yard is the landscaping around it. Having plants close to the swimming pool adds to the allure of the whole area. Without a creative landscape to add to its overall functionality, the pool is merely a swimming hole out in your yard. But a well-designed landscape will transform it into a relaxing oasis for your family and visitors.
This is only if you choose the right plants for the pool area. Regardless of how much you love the trees, shrubs and flowers in your yard or garden, not all of them are going to be suitable for planting around the pool area. That is because the wrong kind of plant will wreak havoc on your pool wall, ruin swimmers' experience, and make cleaning the pool a nightmare, warns McCaw Management in Plano.
Plants with extensive root systems can damage pool walls and plumbing. Those with thorns will injure people and make navigating around the pool difficult. Any type of plant with excessive growth may block-out sunlight. Most importantly, plants that shed excessive leaves, pollen, or flowers will make cleaning the pool a real headache.
The reason you have a pool in your yard is so you can spend time enjoying the water with friends and family. But with messy plants near the pool, rather than spend your time playing in the water, you will spend it fetching debris out of the water. If this sounds like something you want to avoid, then you should keep the following plants very far away from your swimming pool.
These can be divided into three basic categories:
Here are some examples of plants you don’t want near the pool.
Honeysuckles arevarious twining climbers or shrubs that belong to the family Caprifoliaceae. They are used as ornamental plants because of their sweet fragrance andcolorful flowers. The plant has tubular flowers with sweet edible nectar that is a favorite of bees and hummingbirds. They are bad for the swimming pool areas because they are invasive. They will spread to the pool and litter it with spent flowers.
These are a group of shrubs and trees that belong to a subfamily of tropical trees known as Fabaceae. They are pod-bearing with yellow, whitish, red, purple, or cream-colored small flowers that grow in dense clusters. The main problem with Acacias is that they can release a mass of flowers such that the whole yard,including the swimming pool, will be literally coated with spent petals.
The tulip tree,also known as, tulip poplar or yellow poplar gets its name from its large flowers that look like tulips. These large trees are highly deciduous - sometimes shedding leaf, twigs, or sap all year round. They have huge leaves and flowers that measure 6 –25cm and 3 –10cm, respectively. The tree's leaves will clog the pool's cleaners because they become soggy when they fall into the water and cannot be removed with skimmers.
Azaleas are a group of shade-tolerant shrubs under the genus Rhododendron. They are prolific bloomers with their flowers lasting several weeks. Planted inside a garden, azaleas are perfect for creating a captivating effect, due to their stunning colors -pink, red, purple, and white. But what makes them good for gardens also makesthem bad for pool areas. They have a high rate of leaf and flower drop.
Crape myrtle or Lagerstroemia is the name for a group of subtropical evergreen trees and shrubs. They are native to Asia and bear elegant white flowers with shades of pink or red. The Crape Myrtle is a cleaning nightmare because its tiny flowerswill fall into the pool and clog the skimmers. Additionally, if the flowers sink into the water, they are too small to be picked up by the pool's automatic cleaners.
Bottlebrush or Callistemon is a genus of shrubs that are indigenous to Australia. The name is derived from their fiery-red cylindrical flowers which look like the traditional brush used for cleaning bottles. And this is where the problem with the bottlebrush lies. If planted near the pool, when the bottlebrush sheds, the pool's surface will be coated with red needle-like flower parts.
The major problem with planting bamboo around the pool is that this giant grass spreads very quickly. The shoots grow together into dense impenetrable clumps that shed their leaves in great cascades. Moreover, they can grow tall enough to lean over a pool, block-out the sun and shed directly into the water, rather than only on the adjoining areas.
Other messy plants you may want to avoid near the pool are cherry plum, Bougainvillea, Dwarf Arborvitae, and berry plants whose fruits will stain the pool's deck area.