Avoid These 13 Trees That Can Overwhelm A Small Backyard (& What To Plant Instead)

When done right, backyard trees add immense value to properties, both environmentally and market-wise. Apart from their ornamental touch, they improve air quality, filter out noise, attract wildlife, moderate mercurial variations, and stem erosion (while enriching the soil), bringing some much-desired respite to their growers. However, they also bring their own set of problems — some more than others — metamorphosing from titanic sentinels to mammoth eyesores if grown under unfavorable conditions. 

Generally, small yards experience the worst of it because the limited area bounds the tree's growth. For instance, you might've zeroed in on white oak trees to turn your landscape into a bird haven in a single stroke, but their growth on top as well beneath the soil makes them unamenable in shallow, cramped lots. Similarly, you don't want invasive species, such as Callery pears or weeping willows, unless you wish to spend your weekends pulling out the weedy seedlings while lamenting how no other desirable flora survives.

In other words, while selecting trees for a small backyard, you must filter them out based on their mature size and spread. Anything that's not proportionate to your house and closes the view as opposed to broadening it should be avoided. In short, small- or medium-sized trees are the way to go. Other attributes include strong structural integrity and pest resistance. Otherwise, the limb die-back, litter, and disease spread will quickly overwhelm a restrained yard. Armed with such tips, let's delve into the trees inapt in small backyards.

Unless you want to spend your days looking for ways to prevent invasive emerald ash borers from destroying your small yard, steer clear of ash trees (Fraxinus spp.), be it green, white, black, or blue species. These trees that grow more than 50 feet tall — white ash can even touch 120 feet — do your space no favors despite the shade utility. Their food droppings and limb debris also muddy the yard, increasing clean-up chores. Ash trees can be swapped out for thornless honey locust trees. Yellowwood trees, with their wisteria-esque flowers and ample shade, are also good replacement options.

There's much to black walnuts (Juglans nigra) acclaim: mottled shade, edible nuts, songbird attraction, and nativity label in the eastern US region. But its 75-foot-tall profile figures as a miscast in confined spaces. Worse, it releases toxic chemicals or 'juglones' into the soil, reducing the habitable zone for several sensitive plants, including peonies and azaleas, as far out as its drip line. Its nuts are a mess to rake (the stains!), impair mowers, and embody slip hazards. But if enjoying sweet nuts is a necessity, opt for butternut trees, as they're comparatively shorter and stingy with juglone release.

If the Callery pear (Pyrus calleryana) doesn't ring a bell, its cultivar 'Bradford Pear' surely will. While the almost 50-foot deciduous tree is renowned for leaving onlookers breathless with its white flowers or snow-enveloped foliage, doing the same to native plants has earned it invasive credentials from several plant councils, such as California and Georgia. Its sheer brittleness in front of storms and sleets (or age) further alludes to its short life and plain danger in residential landscapes. Drop Callery pears for Allegheny serviceberry, sweet crabapple, or Blackhaw Viburnum trees that also attract more songbirds to your garden.

As fast-growing trees that will thrive in damp soil, attract a bunch of butterflies and birds, and check soil erosion, eastern cottonwoods (Populus deltoides) have gathered quite a few takers interested in rooting native shade trees. However, their 100-foot-tall frame (occasionally, 200) does little to advance their case in small yards. Moreover, their root sprouting (and silky-haired seeds) has made them unpopular among flowering plants who despise their colonization, or at least the ones their brittle limbs haven't trampled. Eastern cottonwoods are also short-lived and are best replaced by their shorter, cottonless compatriots, robusta poplars.

Love for aromatherapy or DIY insecticide oils spurred the planting of eucalyptus trees in small yards based in USDA zones 7 and higher, but that must now come to an end. While these 50- to 100-foot-tall shade trees look ornamental and are effective windbreakers, they dominate the space, become messy, and magnify fire hazards due to their oily resins. Worse, certain varieties, such as Eucalyptus globulus and camaldulensis are considered invasive for outmaneuvering native plants and worsening drought in many states, courtesy of the deep rooting. Mexican lime trees are decent alternatives, provided your area has no anthracnose history.

75 billion and counting (via the University of Redlands) — that's how popular Ginkgo biloba or maidenhair trees are around the US, despite the rank-smelling seeds. While homeowners have dealt with the malodorous issue by switching to male trees, Ginkgos' propensity to grow upwards of 75 feet and just as wide turns them into misfits in small backyards — your utility line clearance is in danger! Sure, the deer-resistant trees exhibit excellent fall color and tolerate all kinds of precarious conditions, including urban pollution and drought. But so do the relatively shorter, pollinator-friendly thornless honey locust trees — plant them instead.

Easy adaptability, rapid growth, evergreen needles, wildlife value, and deer and pollution tolerance have made Norway spruce (Picea abies) quite the catch in cool climates. However, their charm quickly wears off when you factor in their mature size that, although usually averaging around 60 feet, can go as high as 100 feet. This further becomes an issue when you realize they've got surface-level roots that make understory planting a near-impossible task. Fortunately, there's no need to look for options outside the species, as shorter cultivars, such as 'Acrocona' and 'Cupressina' are readily available at nurseries.

Reviled in Virginia, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin, among other US states, due to its prolific seeding, Siberian elm (Ulmus pumila) is the invasive species of elm tree you'll want to avoid growing in your small backyard. It's quick to overload the space, as it scales 70 feet high with its vase-shaped canopy stretching 50 feet across. Although the introduced species stands tall against the Dutch elm disease, it falls prey to other pests, including leaf beetles, sawflies, and fungal spores, necessitating frequent treatments. Save yourself the trouble by establishing red maples (assuming they aren't overplanted in your territory).

Silver maple (Acer saccharinum) might epitomize natural grace but think twice before planting this fast-growing shade tree in your small yard. Its nearly 80-foot frame is just the start of problems; weak limbs that can't survive gales or snow are another — both the concurrent damage from breakage and clean-up are a turnoff. Plus, it grows shallow roots that don't shy away from tearing apart hardscaping and sewage pipes, nor from outcompeting turfgrass and desirable ornamentals. For stronger wood, grow whitebarked or chalk maple trees — they top out at under 30 feet and subsist through alkalinity, heat, and shade.

Although you might've received the memo that planting tulip trees will have hummingbirds flocking to your yard, they're just not the right fit if your space can't handle their 60-foot girth and twice the height. Botanically named Liriodendron tulipifera, the pyramidal-shaped tulip poplars make gardening difficult as they grow shallow roots and swath the ground in wrecked spurs, lowering a small yard's functionality. To weave the hummingbird magic at suitable heights, trade the tulip trees for sweet bay or bigleaf magnolias. But if you aren't bothered by the mess, shorter tulip cultivars like 'Arnold' might work.

Weeping willows (Salix babylonica) may be a beautiful way to add shade to your yard with their lithe forms and apt sizes. But they're quick to overwhelm small areas with their feeble boughs that break at the first contact with ice and winds. Although regular pruning may rein in some damage, their adventitious roots ramming into moisture-rich flower beds (or underground utilities) are equally problematic, making them invasive in Arlington. Their high susceptibility to perilous diseases and pests, such as cankers, blights, and borers, especially makes them inconvenient. Yaupon and winterberry holly trees can be successful replacements.

With spines so vile, planting osage-orange (Maclura pomifera) almost feels like a choice that eclectic gardeners would indulge in. Though they almost always play it off to the orange-barked trees behaving as living security fences and a way to capitalize their 'don't care where I'm sited' attitude (unless pH levels are scarily low). Sometimes touching highs of 70 feet, osage-oranges often feel like an outlier in confined yards, with their stinking fruits depriving the growers of any space with fresh air worth its name. They make black gum trees look better with pollinators for visitors rather than rodents.

Given the resounding role oaks play in nurturing numerous birds and pollinators, many homeowners are tempted to grow their form-changing white variety (Quercus alba). However, with heights just short of 135 feet and an 80-foot spread, they aren't the shade trees you want in a modest backyard. Instead, look for smaller varieties, such as scrub or gambel oaks, that are just as liked by bees, butterflies, and songsters but don't take as much room, measuring 30 and 15 feet, top and across. Group them for a ready hedge.