It is almost April, and spring yard clean up time is here! After a windy winter and spring, sometimes there are lots of branches to pick up. Some trees are very messy, and they drop a lot of branches and debris. Read on to find out some trees to avoid, if you don’t want a big mess to clean up. Just remember, all trees will drop some debris, the ones listed are just worse than some others.

Minimize Spring Yard Clean Up - It's More than Messy Trees

There are a couple of things you can do to minimize spring landscape clean up. First, although rather obvious, periodically clean up throughout the months leading up to spring time and grass mowing season. Spending a few minutes every couple of weeks picking up debris makes clean up seem less daunting. Twenty- or thirty-minute pick up sessions are a lot easier than a session that lasts for several hours. Second, maintain the trees in your yard. Periodically trim, thin, and remove major deadwood. Removing dead branches means that they can’t fall to the ground. Thinning and pruning trees keeps them healthy plus helps prevent branches from breaking unnecessarily. Finally, remove dead trees. Dead trees drop a lot of debris. Sometimes this is large branches that may cause unwanted damage to surrounding live trees.

Messy Trees

There are trees that definitely are messier than others. This means that they consistently drop a lot of debris. This is not an exhaustive list, but these trees are common. Of course, if you already have them in your yard, there isn’t much you can do. However, if you are considering planting some trees, and you like a neat yard, you might not want to choose these.

Pines

Pine trees are lovely. Pinecones are lovely too. However, these trees make a mess two ways. First the needles fall. They not only will suffocate grass, but they also are difficult to rake up. Second, they drop pinecones. Some of them drop a lot of pinecones. I love pinecones, but when I am trying to keep the lawn looking it’s best, the pinecones have to go.

River Birch

I wrote about River Birch trees in this post a few months ago. These are beautiful landscape tree with long, skinny flowing branches. As a result of their anatomy, the branches break and fall frequently. This just leads to a big mess.

Tree of Heaven

The Tree of Heaven is not heavenly, and it is an invasive species. Consequently, you should remove them when they crop up. If being an invasive species is not enough reason for you to remove them, then maybe the mess they make is. These trees are fast growing and not sturdy. They drop so many branches it is hard to believe that the tree is still standing. They should always be removed.

Sycamore

I love Sycamore trees, but they are messy. They drop a moderate amount of limb debris. That is not the worst part. Although their flowers are beautiful, they are prolific and messy. These blossoms also hinder grass growing. If you have one, then you have to deal with it. If you are considering planting, you might want to reconsider.

Magnolia

You probably wouldn’t think that Magnolia trees are messy, but they are. I am referring to Southern Magnolias. Once the beautiful white flower is spent, a hard almost pine cone looking thing called an aggregate is left. This houses the brilliant red seeds. Unfortunately, it eventually falls to the ground. It is dark in color and almost looks like a pile of some sort of feces. It’s not pretty. Also, their leaves are large and drop frequently. The one good thing about the leaves is that sometimes they blow away!