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There is one tree that's at the top on my hate list and that's the Queen Ann Lynden. They are the messiest tree on the face of this earth. Always shedding something. That one tree was more maintenance that the whole 1 1/2 acre garden .
It's gone now and life is so much easier. It caused black shoot on anything near it from the aphids and the sticky seeds and flower brackets shed huge piles everywhere. Then piles of more sticky leaves. It was constantly shedding thru the whole season huge piles and sticky leafs brackets and floral seeds all sticky from aphid pee stuck to everything. Even all the ladybugs couldn't keep up with the aphids. U would walk under the tree and feel a light mist and it wasn't water. Sticky aphid pee. Not to mention all the ants.
If a car was parked under it, it too was a sticky mess with leaves stuck on it everywhere. I swear that tree was from a different planet.
I cut that tree down it was 65' and 40' wide a monster. The worse tree I ever experienced in 24 years of gardening. The only good quality about it was all the bees loved it. It had so many bees it would buzz so loudly it sounded like it was ready to launch. I wish it would have. Because of the bee shortage at the time they were needed for the many crops in our area. However the last few years there were very few bees on the tree it was so quiet, no bees buzzing around . I don't miss that tree at all. I do miss the bees. I hope the bee parasite that's been killing bees will some day be controlled.
If you're talking about stuff I've actually planted, I'd say one of the worst was Mexican petunia. It may be pretty to look at while its blooming, but it spreads like wildfire and will take over your whole yard.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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We had Mountain Laurel in front of the living room window when we moved in. Eventually they grew to cover the lower part of the glass and I though they were ugly, so I cut them to the ground and used Roundup on the new shoots when they came out until they were totally dead.
My vote for the most useless tree in a yard is the Sycamore, my neighbor has one about 40 tall and I literally have those huge leaves a foot deep in my yard every Fall. If you've never seen the leaves, some of them are 10/12" across, huge ! Those trees belong in a forest but not in landscaping. Oh, I almost forgot about my neighbor on the other side bringing in Creeping Charlie. I finally found a product that will eliminate it, but it damn near took over my lawn.
I love my backyard sumac but eager spreading has been an issue. Oops.
The bittersweet I bought has been a disappointment as they must have sold me two of the same sex plants and, while they vine like crazy, they've never made berries.
My chokecherry tree, planted with dreams of jams and jellies in the future, smells like pure heaven in the spring but turned out to be an ornamental.
And all attempts to establish a clump of birches have failed due to insufficient high ground.
I have to admit that all my disappointment was due to ignorance or insufficient information, mine or someone else's. It's been a learn-as-you-go effort.
We had Mountain Laurel in front of the living room window when we moved in. Eventually they grew to cover the lower part of the glass and I though they were ugly, so I cut them to the ground and used Roundup on the new shoots when they came out until they were totally dead.
That's a shame - I love Mountain Laurel and will be planting 8-10 of them along my back fence next month to create a privacy hedge.
As for me, I hate sweet gum trees and had a few of them removed from my backyard this summer. It's a welcome respite NOT to have those awful sticker balls laying all over the backyard!
Holly Bush. Former owner of my home planted an abundance of them in the 1970s and 1980s. I've been systematically killing them, one by one. They grow fast and tear up my hands.
I hate them.
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