Flowering Trees That Make a Mess

Messy Flowers

• Commonly cultivated flowering trees, such as the flowering dogwood, magnolia and flowering pear, provide lovely seasonal color in gardens and urban locations. Once the blooms fade, however, the aged, browning petals plop to the ground, discolored and messy. Decaying flowers on sidewalks and roads become slippery and smelly; on grassy lawns, discarded flowers may overwhelm the lawn, causing the grass to yellow. Some of the most commonly planted flowering trees that drop messy masses of flowers requiring cleanup are the flowering pear, catalpa, magnolia, cherry, dogwood, queen crape myrtle and bottlebrush.

Messy Fruits

• Flowering trees produce fruits. Unharvested fruits drop to the ground as they ripen, creating a slippery surface for urban pedestrians and drivers. Rural areas may be plagued with fly or caterpillar infestations that feed on the overripe, rotting fruit; decaying fruit on the ground may attract deer that easily consider the remainder of the garden a delicious entree. Apple trees, for example, have many enemies: apple scab, powdery mildew, rust, blight, galls, sooty blotch, flyspeck and a host of parasitical plagues. Commonly grown trees known for their propensity to drop smelly or quickly-rotting fruits include the female gingko tree, crabapple varieties, Asian white mulberry, and persimmon.

Messy Pods

• Some flowering trees develop unsightly and messy seed pods after producing flowers and fruit. Unlike the discarded flowers and fruits, seed pods do not readily decompose or are devoured. Instead, the pods clog drain basins, collect in piles on curbs and create a messy area under the tree canopy. Some flowering trees that produce unsightly and messy seed pods include the honeylocust, female coffee tree, mimosa, princess tree, and mountain ash.

Management Techniques

• Despite the messy habits of certain flowering trees, gardeners do have a few choices for managing their trees and selecting cultivars for the new garden. Arborists have developed a chemical treatment to reduce or eliminate the slippery, dropping fruits of the flowering pear and Liquidambar trees. Ethephon (a plant growth regulator), sprayed onto the trees in full bloom, have shown to eliminate the "nuisance" fruits of these common urban flowering trees. Trees pruned during the flowering stage produce fewer berries, and pruned trees in general are less susceptible to disease. For new gardens, select cultivars that produce no seed pods, such as the Majestic honeylocust variety; or disease-resistant trees such as the apple-scab-resistant crabapple cultivars "David" or "Liset."