How to Landscape Around a Pool

By selecting the rights plants in the landscape near your swimming pool, you will assure safety for pool users and minimize pool maintenance. Here are some tips.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Ornamental Grasses
• Plants
• Shrubs
• Trees
• Vines
• Plants
• Shrubs

1. Consider container plants, which are easy to tend, replace and rearrange. One additional advantage: Frost-sensitive container plants can be moved indoors for the winter and brought outdoors again the next spring.

2. Plant trees and shrubs that won't hang over the pool because nearly every variety will drop something into it - leaves, petals, pollen.

3. Forgo plants with destructive roots. Mulberries and cottonwoods are taboo for this reason.

4. Move the messier plants so the tips of their branches are at least 8 feet from the pool.

5. Note that shorter plants' leaves and flower petals are less likely to get caught by the wind and be blown into the pool. Options include ornamental grasses such as ophiopogon, liriope and maiden grass and small shrubs such as 'Harbour Dwarf' nandina and dwarf yaupon holly.

6. Choose trees and shrubs (maples, forsythia, etc.) that drop their leaves in a short period and you can do one cleanup. Crape myrtles are a poor choice because their flowers fall for months (staining the sidewalks) and their leaves drop in fall, too. Droppings from fruit trees are also a problem.

7. Avoid pest and disease prone plants. You won't want to be spraying toxins that end up in the pool.

8. Try to choose plants that won't require a lot of pruning. It could be difficult to reach branches hanging over the deep end.

9. Avoid evergreens such as live oaks and pines, even though they seem like an obvious choice. In fact, they tend to drop needles, leaves, pine cones, flowers, and acorns (that stain pool decks and sidewalks) for months. Hollies are a better choice for evergreens, but don't put a stickery species near the pool where romping kids can be hurt.

10. Be sure not to place any plant near the pool with stickery bark or foliage or thorns. Hard yucca (a.k.a. Spanish bayonet), cactus, pyracantha (a.k.a. firethorn) and the ultra-spiny Chinese holly are among the no-nos.

11. Avoid plants that attract stinging insects. Bumblebees flock to Salvia Greggii, for instance, so it should not be used.

12. Note that perennials tend to be messier than annuals, so you might want to place annuals nearest the pool. Begonia and coleus are two good options.

13. Ensure privacy by carefully setting up a large trellis or arbor to block the eyes of passersby or the view from a neighbor's window. Good vines for a trellis or arbor include the noninvasive coral honeysuckle ('Gold Flame' is one variety) and Carolina jasmine.

Tips & Warnings

• Get advice from knowledgeable personnel at a local nursery that sells plants suited to your climate and soil. Tell them you're landscaping around a pool and ask how far away particular plants should be from the pool, and which plants attract insects, which plants are messy, which trees have destructive roots.
• Tropical-looking plants look wonderful around the pool. Widely available, tidy examples include aspidistra, banana tree, palms, caladiums, elephant ears, aucuba, cyperus and Fatsia japonica.

[PositivePolly]

on 2/22/2009 Great advice! I just planted monkey grass around the deck apron and Ilex Sky Pencils. I learned about staining the deck when Hibiscus blooms fell (the plants were very tropical but spread too wide and couldn't be cut back far enough - a lot of work).

[eric011]

on 2/9/2009 This is some good advice. I'm a big fan of tropical-esque landscaping around a pool, even if you don't have a Florida climate. It just takes a little education and it's really amazing how easy it is to create a very exotic looking tropical setting around a pool. Believe it or not, there are so many stunning tropical and tropical looking plants that are so very easy to grow. My thoughts .... break from the norm and turn your pool into something more than a "cement pond" in your backyard. I call mine my "Backyard Resort"

Eric
www.tropicalyard.com/blog