This article comes from The Spruce.
10 Messy Plants You Don’t Want Near the Pool
Do you really want a high-maintenance relationship with your swimming pool or spa? The kind that requires you to spend your free time (what’s that?) cleaning out twigs, spent flowers, fruit, and plant debris from nearby poolside landscaping?
On the subject of things to be aware of when selecting poolside plants: find out how far their root systems are likely to spread, so you won’t get roots in your water pipes.
1. Acacia
This evergreen Australian native can be grown as a tree or shrub and has creamy-yellow clusters of flowers that grow along its stems from late winter to summer, depending on where you live. All species of acacia have pods, sap, and are fire resistant. When it’s time for the acacia to release its flower clusters, they spread—all over your yard and into your pool.
If you must have an acacia, plant it in the front yard and hope a mighty wind doesn’t blow around the time of pod and flower drop.
2. Azalea
Azaleas are known as “the royalty of the garden.” Colors range in the pinks, reds, purples and white, and there are approximately 800 species belonging to this large group. The shrub is a favorite of many gardeners for its stunning and often profuse flowers, long bloom time, and long life—some live for decades if treated well.
This is not to say that azalea lovers can’t have their beloved bushes inhabiting the same yard as a swimming pool. Just make sure the plants are in containers or beds that are as far away as possible from the pool. Why? leaf and flower drop.
Azaleas are either evergreen or deciduous. Deciduous azaleas drop all of their leaves in the fall. In dry climates, the plants may shed their leaves earlier than usual. Leaves will then grow back in the spring. In warmer climates or during unusually warm winters, deciduous azaleas may keep some of their leaves through the winter, according to the Azalea Society of America.
3. Bamboo
Nothing says exotic and tropical quite like bamboo, which can grow quickly and spread profusely if you choose the clumping variety. If your backyard has a tropical, Asian, or Japanese garden theme and you’re dead-set on using bamboo, plant it away from the pool to keep leaf litter from blowing into the water.
4. Bottlebrush
Natives to Australia, Callistemon, better known by their common name, bottlebrush, are naturally dense and compact, and make ideal hedges for privacy. Those red bottlebrush-looking flowers are known to shed, and when they do, all those individual red needle-like parts scatter into many pieces. If it’s near your pool or in the same yard, the wind will blow it you-know-where.
5. Bougainvillea
This shrubby, evergreen vine is native to tropical and subtropical South America. Many gardeners are able to control a potential mess by growing bougainvillea in containers on patios or decks, pruning them heavily, then moving them to protected areas during the winter.
Bougainvilleas are known for their vibrant colors, ranging from white to yellow and orange, and from pink to red and purple. However, that fabulous color does not come from the vine’s actual flowers, but from its paper-thin bracts that surround the flower.
Double-flowered varieties tend to look messy because they retain faded blooms for a long time. After that, they lose their bracts, or twice the bracts. 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.
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