What to Plant?

In part one, I discussed some of the beautiful and useful plants that landscapers recommend or maintain for clients, that we wouldn’t plant in our own home gardens. Whether hard to maintain, prickly, or just overused – these are perfectly good plants in many ways – but often have one fatal flaw us pro-gardeners just don’t want to deal with in our downtime. Here’s the rest of that list:

Mayten Tree/ Maytenus boaria

Maytenus boaria is actually one of my favorite plants if we’re only talking about looks, but it’s a nightmare to maintain because it delights in sending up a constant barrage of suckers from the ground. In every garden we care for with a mature Mayten Tree, part of our monthly maintenance is cutting out the suckers within a 15’ radius from the trunk.

That said, it’s a beautiful plant. I love the way the leaves rustle in the breeze and the graceful weeping habit. But pulling up Mayten suckers isn’t my idea of a great way to spend the weekend.

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