Conifers and other culprits

Two of the lawns we attended to this week were showing signs of drought.  Previously  I have associated this with the heavy clay soils of our allotments.  There cracks become visible in high summer where the grassy paths end and the beds begin. 

A shady lawn we visited exhibited a crazy paving of cracks under the shadow of leyland cypress.  This set me thinking on the habits of these conifers and their deleterious effects on turf, and from there to plants that I have encountered in our daily work and wish to avoid in our next home because they are fast-growing, thirsty, invasive or non-native species whose leaves do not biodegrade easily.  So here are ten for my list.  I would just add that gardening is a matter of taste, and you, dear readers, may in fact love all of these specimens dearly:

• bamboo which travels
• leylandii which grow tall - unless you are willing to hire a tree surgeon
• prickly pyrecantha which sticks out at awkward angles and pokes you - unless you are capitalising on this as a burglar deterrent
• stag's horn - it dies back at the tips and bits drop off and then it shoots up vigorously in other places
• photinia a.k.a. 'red robin' whose leaves do not biodegrade well
• ash - a tree which will colonise a garden uninvited
• sycamore - ditto
• elder - ditto
• ceanothus - it looks pretty but does not seem to thrive here

and finally

• ivy which, unchecked, pulls down your trellis.