Here is a Great List of the Best and Worst Trees to Plant Around Your Pool 

A backyard with a pool and lush plantings around the pool area.

If you want your swimming pool area to look even more beautiful, you can try landscaping around it. However, the plants and trees that you choose need to be selected with careful consideration. Trees that have a lot of leaves, litter, or trees and plants with a lot of pollen aren’t good ideas to add near your pool.

Similarly, berries should be avoided as well, as well as budding debris. When you add trees with these features near your pool, you increase the amount of work you need to do to maintain your pool.

Keep in mind as well that trees that have long root systems can end up damaging the walls of your pool. It can also affect the plumbing of the pool as well. Sometimes, trees become so large that they block the Sun’s rays from reaching the pool. This can end up reducing the amount of heat reaching your pool. If the sights and sounds around the pool are blocked, then the area may also become unsafe.

You may hear people saying that not planting trees around your pool is the best option. But this may not be desirable in many cases and is unrealistic as well. So, are there any trees that you can plant around your fibreglass pool? Use this guide to learn all about the trees you should and shouldn’t plant around your pool.

Which are the best trees to plant around your swimming pool?

There are some things you need to take into consideration when deciding on the trees you’ll add to your backyard landscape. They include:

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Climate

If your home is in an area with a temperate climate, then there are various trees that you can add around your pool. Tropical climates allow you to add different kinds of trees. Remember to take the climate of your area into consideration, as well as what trees thrive in that area and what don’t.

Shade

Consider if you want a part of your swimming pool or backyard to be shaded. This can be achieved with the help of trees. If you’re looking to add shade to your pool, then picking a tree that can help achieve that would be ideal. You can also consider a cabana, as well as a pergola. This can be done with vines, as well as wisteria.

Privacy

Some people add trees to their backyards in order to obtain more privacy for their homes. Maybe you don’t want your neighbours to be able to see what you’re doing. Maybe there is a lot of noise in your neighbourhood, or you may also be trying to improve your view as well. In this case, you can opt for evergreens that grow fast. These can be added to one or both sides of your fibreglass pool.

Aesthetics

Many people add trees to their homes as a way to improve the appeal of the home. You can add fruit trees or trees that are flowering. You can choose to add deciduous trees as well. These are trees that tend to shed leaves during the fall months. However, keep in mind that although they are pretty to look at, you’ll have a lot of work cut out for you during the fall.

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Great tree choices to add around your pool

Consider planting acacia, citrus, banana, holly, olive trees, and more. These are some of the best trees to plant around your pool. You can choose evergreens as well, such as spruce, cypress and arbour vitae. Magnolia is another evergreen tree you can choose from.

If you do opt for olive trees, consider the variety that doesn’t bear fruit. This saves you from having to clean out fallen olives from the surface of the pool. Oleander, which is a large bush essentially, also looks aesthetically pleasing around Newcastle swimming pools. If possible, then windmill palms can be a great idea as well. These trees are hardy and suited to certain kinds of climates.

An important thing to keep in mind is that if you have children or pets, then avoid oleander. This is because the oleander tends to produce a large amount of toxins. Even if a little bit of it is accidentally ingested, it can make a person seriously ill or even kill the person that consumed it.

Other good plants to plant around your pool

If you want plants that look good visually but don’t need a lot of maintenance, then consider sedums or daylilies. You can also opt for ornamental grasses. Examples of this include Maiden Grass, as well as Mondo Grass. Lilyturf is also a kind of ornamental grass that you can add to your pool. These tend to grow up to almost half a foot. If you have an inground pool, then you can plant ornamental grass around it. For above-ground pools, ornamental grass can be added to the base area of the pool.

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Sweet shrubs, also known as calycanthus, is another great option for your backyard. These release a sweet scent in the same way many citrus trees do. If you want to add small shrubs, then consider either Yaupon Holly or Harbour Dwarf Nandina. These are great for lining the border of a path or along the perimeter of the pool deck area. These shrubs tend to be low maintenance, as well as highly resilient.

Which are the worst trees to plant around your pool?

Avoid trees with invasive root systems, such as mulberries, aspens, willows, cottonwoods, and others. These can erode the ground along the pool, if close enough, and can affect the pool plumbing as well.

You should also avoid palm trees, trees that bear fruit, grapevines, nut trees, berry plants, flowering trees and such. This is as there will be a lot of cleaning that you’ll need to do, should you choose to add such trees. Insects, as well as rodents, will also be attracted to your backyard.

Consider also avoiding evergreen trees that are needle bearing, deciduous trees that are large, as well as crape myrtles. These tend to have larger leaves, and when they fall in the swimming pool, you’ll need to clean them. It’s possible for finer needles to enter the skimmer baskets and end up clogging the impeller of the pool pump.

You should also avoid cacti, Chinese holly, flowers that are thorny, as well as Hard Yucca. This is in order to ensure there aren’t any injuries from touching the plants. You can add them to areas of the backyard where people and pets don’t frequent.

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Conclusion

There are some great trees you can add to the landscape around your pool, but there are others that don’t make such great additions. Use this guide to figure out which trees and plants you should add to the landscape around your fibreglass pool.

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