Don’t just avoid Bradford pears. Keep these 12 trees out of SC yards. Here’s why

Lyn Riddle
·2 min read
11

OK, OK, enough about Bradford Pear trees being a menace to society and good landscaping.

We all know — or should — they’re so bad the state of South Carolina will give you another kind of tree if you cut yours down. Then, the Legislature outlawed them.

They were the No. 1 arch enemy of Roger Milliken, the Spartanburg textile magnate who loved trees he considered “noble” so much he had an annual dinner to celebrate them.

He also wrote a book called “Noble Trees.”

But did you know there are plenty of other trees arborists and tree enthusiasts don’t like?

Here’s a list, compiled from various sources including Southern Living, which picked seven, Gardening Channel, 25, and Mr. Tree Services, six.

Many are on all three avoid-at-all-costs lists.

Suffice it to say, the trees listed here have one or more of these traits: weedy, prone to disease, messy, have invasive roots, and in the case of the Bradford pear they stink.

1. Mimosa — fluffy pink flowers last two weeks. “Then they’re replaced by scads of these large, ugly, brown seed pods that hang there until the next spring,” Steve Bender, Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener, wrote. “So for two weeks of beauty, you get 50 weeks of gross.

2. White Mulberry — Birds love the berries. Enough said.

3. Hackberry — Aphids love the leaves so much they drop sticky stuff and it’s just disgusting.

4. Eastern Cottonwood — Bender says he can’t think of a messier tree.

5. Silver Maple — Roots get in water lines and crack sidewalks.

6. Female Ginkgo — Smelly fruit litter everything. Nauseating. Get the male variety, Mr. Tree Services says.

7. Siberian Elm — “Spreads aggressively,” according to Mr. Tree, and they get infested with pests, and break apart in rain and ice storms.

8. Sycamore — They grow too tall for residential neighborhoods and once pests dig in, they are a danger.

9. Say it ain’t so but Gardening Channel says no to Weeping willows. They are susceptible to fungi and you’ve seen they are as messy as a teenager.

10. White Pine — Messy, sap droppers.

11. Leyland Cypress — Known as a great fast-growing tree that can keep your neighbors out of your business, they can become diseased and their shallow roots can allow the tree to fall.

12. Sweetgum — Have you ever seen their spiky seed pods? Messy and painful if you’re prone to walk barefoot in your yard.