Never plant this tree in your yard

I’ve lived in Northern California for over twenty years. I’ve planted trees, removed trees, watched neighbors plant trees, and watched those same neighbors pay $3,000 to remove the trees they planted five years earlier. If there’s one species I’d warn every homeowner about, it’s the Sweet Gum tree (Liquidambar styraciflua). The Sweet Gum is the single worst tree you can plant on a residential lot.

It looks beautiful in a nursery pot. The star-shaped leaves are distinctive. The fall color can rival any maple. And the price is right, usually $40 to $80 for a 15-gallon container. Nurseries love selling them because they grow fast and look impressive within a couple of years.

Don’t fall for it. There’s a whole article on why sweet gum trees are a nightmare that goes into even more detail. This tree will make your life miserable.

Why do nurseries still sell Sweet Gum trees?

Because they’re cheap to grow, easy to stock, and they look great in the first two years. A Sweet Gum grows 2 to 3 feet per year in zones 5 through 9. That fast growth impresses new homeowners who want instant results. The nursery gets the sale. You get the problems.

Sweet Gum is native to the eastern United States, from Connecticut down to Florida and west to Texas. It’s a fine tree in its native range, in a forest, where the seed balls feed wildlife and the root system stabilizes stream banks. But a residential yard on a 6,000-square-foot lot is not a forest. The problems that don’t matter in the wild become expensive headaches in a subdivision.

The spiky seed balls are a nightmare

Let’s start with the most obvious problem. Sweet Gum trees produce hundreds of hard, spiky seed balls (technically called “fruit” by botanists) every year. Each one is about the size of a golf ball, covered in woody spikes, and they rain down from October through February. A single mature tree can drop thousands of them in one season.

Step on one barefoot and you’ll remember it for days. Step on one in shoes and your ankle might roll sideways, because they act like ball bearings on concrete and grass alike. I watched a jogger go down hard on a park sidewalk near my house that was covered in these things. The entire path was unusable for three months out of the year. The city eventually removed those trees. Cost taxpayers over $12,000 per tree.

They jam up lawn mowers. Hit one with a mower blade and it becomes a projectile. They clog gutters. They roll into the street. Kids can’t play under the tree without shoes on. You’ll spend hours raking them up, and more will fall the next day. If your gutters fill with them, water backs up under your shingles and you’re looking at $500 to $1,200 in gutter cleaning and minor roof repair.

Some nurseries sell a fruitless cultivar called ‘Rotundiloba’ that doesn’t produce seed balls. But most of the Sweet Gums already in neighborhoods are the standard fruiting type, and that’s what gets planted when people grab whatever is cheapest at the garden center. Even ‘Rotundiloba’ still has the root problems and the brittle wood.

The wood is brittle and limbs drop without warning

Sweet Gum wood is weak. Not “might break in a major storm” weak. More like “drops a 6-inch diameter limb on a calm Tuesday afternoon” weak. The International Society of Arboriculture rates wood strength on a scale, and Sweet Gum falls in the lower range alongside Silver Maple and Bradford Pear, two other species that belong on no one’s planting list.

A neighbor of mine on the next block had a row of six mature Sweet Gums along his property line. In one year, two separate limbs crashed through his roof. The first one punched through the garage roof and landed on his car. The second took out a section of the main house roof over the bedroom. Insurance covered most of it, but his premiums went up. He paid around $8,000 to have all six trees removed after the second incident.

High winds make it worse, but the real danger is that these trees shed limbs even in normal weather. The wood just fails. Arborists call this “summer branch drop,” and while it can happen with many species, Sweet Gum does it more often than most. If you have a Sweet Gum hanging over your house, your driveway, or anywhere people walk, you’re rolling dice every season. If you already have one dropping branches, read up on how to care for trees after storm damage because you’ll need that information eventually. And make sure you’ve read up on protecting your trees before the next storm so you know what to look for.

The roots will crack your sidewalk and threaten your foundation

Sweet Gum roots are aggressive, shallow, and relentless. They spread wide and they push up hard. The root system typically extends 1.5 to 3 times the width of the canopy. For a mature Sweet Gum with a 40-foot canopy spread, that means roots reaching 60 to 120 feet from the trunk. That’s well past your property line and into your neighbor’s yard, under the sidewalk, and toward your house.

I’ve seen Sweet Gum roots buckle a concrete driveway in under ten years. Sidewalks don’t stand a chance. Municipalities across California spend millions every year repairing sidewalks damaged by tree roots, and Sweet Gum is one of the top offenders. Sacramento’s urban forestry program identified it as a frequent cause of sidewalk damage in older neighborhoods.

Plant one within 20 feet of your house and those roots will find your foundation. They won’t necessarily crack the foundation itself, but they’ll push against it, work into existing cracks, and cause the kind of settling and shifting that leads to $5,000 to $15,000 foundation repair bills. They’ll also invade sewer lines. Clay sewer pipes are especially vulnerable, and a Sweet Gum root can find a hairline crack in a pipe joint and fill the entire line within a few years. A sewer line replacement runs $3,000 to $7,000.

The roots are also nearly impossible to kill after you remove the tree. Cut the trunk, grind the stump, and the roots keep growing underground for years. New shoots pop up across the yard, in flower beds, through cracks in the patio. You end up playing whack-a-mole with root sprouts for two or three seasons after the tree is gone.

If you’re looking for trees that won’t destroy your hardscape, check out our list of the best trees to plant near a sidewalk. Every tree on that list was chosen specifically because the root system behaves itself. There’s also a guide to trees to plant near sidewalks that explains which species keep their roots in check.

It doesn’t even give good shade

Here’s the final insult. For all the problems a Sweet Gum causes, you’d think it at least provides dense, cooling shade. It doesn’t. The growth habit tends to be narrow and pyramidal, especially when young. The canopy is open and the branches grow vertically more than horizontally. You end up with a tall tree (75 to 100 feet at maturity in good conditions) that casts a narrow shadow that moves with the sun and never really covers your patio or outdoor living space.

Compare that to a Chinese Pistache (Pistacia chinensis), which tops out at 35 to 40 feet, spreads a broad umbrella-shaped canopy that provides genuine all-day shade by year ten, and barely needs your hose (the UC Davis Arboretum rates it low-water once established). Or a Camphor tree (Cinnamomum camphora), which is evergreen and gives you shade twelve months a year. We have a full writeup on the Camphor tree if you want to learn about its pros and cons. Both of those trees are better shade performers with a fraction of the problems.

If you want fall color without the carnage, look at our picks for trees with the best fall color. A Chinese Pistache turns scarlet and orange in October and drops clean leaves, not spiky grenades.

Sweet Gum versus other problem trees

Sweet Gum isn’t the only tree that causes headaches. But it’s the worst combination of problems in one package. Here’s how it stacks up against other trees people plant and regret:

Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum): Grows fast, brittle wood, aggressive surface roots. But at least it gives great shade and doesn’t produce spiky seed balls. Our maple tree guide covers which maples are worth planting and which to skip.

Bradford Pear (Pyrus calleryana ‘Bradford’): Brittle wood (splits in half at 15 to 20 years), foul-smelling flowers, and now banned or restricted for sale in several states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina because the seeds produce invasive offspring. Different problems from Sweet Gum, but equally bad.

Weeping Willow (Salix babylonica): Root system is even more aggressive than Sweet Gum. Will find and destroy any underground pipe within 50 feet. But willows need wet conditions, so at least most homeowners don’t try to plant them in a dry suburban yard.

WUCOLS (the UC water-use guide for landscape plants) rates Sweet Gum as moderate-water in the Central Valley. So it’s not even a low-water tree. You’re irrigating a tree that cracks your sidewalk, drops grenades on your lawn, and sheds limbs on your roof.

Sweet Gum gives you all the worst traits rolled into one: brittle wood, spiky fruit, invasive shallow roots, poor shade, a moderate water bill, and a root system that outlives the tree. No other common nursery tree checks that many boxes.

What to do if you already have one

If you have a mature Sweet Gum that’s not near your house and not over a sidewalk, you can live with it. Hire an ISA-certified arborist to inspect it every two to three years. Have them remove dead wood and thin the canopy to reduce the chance of limb failure. Budget $400 to $800 per trimming visit. Our guide on when to trim your tree covers the best timing for pruning to avoid stressing the tree further.

Keep the gutters clear from October through February. Rake the seed balls weekly during drop season, or buy a nut gatherer (a rolling cage tool, about $30 to $50) to speed up the pickup.

But if it’s within 15 feet of your foundation, hanging over your roof, or dropping limbs on areas where people walk, get it removed. Read through our tree removal guide first so you know what to expect. A professional removal for a large Sweet Gum runs $1,500 to $4,000 depending on access and size. Stump grinding adds $200 to $500. That sounds expensive until you compare it to a new roof or a foundation repair.

After removal, apply a systemic herbicide (triclopyr or glyphosate) to the freshly cut stump to kill the root system. Your arborist can handle this. Without herbicide treatment, expect root sprouts for two to three years.

Don’t plant a new one to replace it. Pick something from our guide to the best trees for your yard instead. Your future self will thank you.

What to plant instead

If you want what the Sweet Gum promises (fast growth, fall color, a real shade tree) without the problems, here are three replacements that actually deliver:

Chinese Pistache (Pistacia chinensis): Zones 6 through 9. Grows 2 to 3 feet per year. Broad canopy, outstanding red-orange fall color. No messy fruit on male trees. Deep roots that don’t buckle sidewalks. The UC Davis Arboretum rates it an All-Star for Sacramento Valley performance, and WUCOLS classifies it as low-water once established. Tops out at 35 to 40 feet. This is the tree the Sweet Gum wishes it was.

Red Maple (Acer rubrum) ‘October Glory’ or ‘Red Sunset’: Zones 3 through 9. Reliable crimson fall color. Better branch structure than Sweet Gum. Moderate root system. Grows to 40 to 50 feet. Needs regular water the first two summers.

Zelkova (Zelkova serrata ‘Green Vase’): Zones 5 through 8. Vase-shaped canopy, great shade, strong wood that resists storm damage. Grows 50 to 60 feet tall. Used as a street tree replacement for American Elm across the country. Clean. Tough. Boring in the best possible way.

All three of these trees are widely available at nurseries in the $60 to $120 range for a 15-gallon container. For small yards, look at Japanese Maple, Crape Myrtle, or Redbud instead.

The bottom line

The Sweet Gum tree is a beautiful forest tree. It belongs in parks, open spaces, and rural acreage where the seed balls, falling limbs, and aggressive roots don’t cause problems. It does not belong in a residential yard on a standard lot. Not next to a house. Not next to a sidewalk. Not next to a fence.

If a landscaper recommends one, find a different landscaper. If a nursery pushes one on you, walk past it and grab a Chinese Pistache. Your ankles, your roof, your foundation, and your Saturday mornings will all be better for it.