Well that message vindicates my "brown thumb." I should grit my teeth and dig it up, but it's huge. Guess my only recourse is potted plants around the base, but it drops leaves all the time. Would those hinder growth also?

Don't know, but I believe that the active ingredient is mainly in the roots. Dig it up or go with pots. ANd good luck!

I didn't know this, but I knew there was a reason I didn't like bottlebrush trees. I always assumed that the reason nothing grew underneath them was that they sucked up all the water.

I have amaryllis growing under mine. They seem to be doing OK. Maybe I have just been lucky. The tree is not all large so perhaps they just haven't been affected yet. Or maybe it's the different type of root?

I have agapanthus under mine - they are all doing fine.

Bulbous type plants should be fine of course...the roots ingredient mainly targets shallow rooted grassy type weeds. I would guess, however, that neither plant is at its optimum with the underplantings. I have seen tangerine trees with underplantings that all looked OK...but this is a cardinal sin for citrus...NO underplantings. Bottlebrush probably prefers to be by itself as well, but I bet yours looks great PeaBee4!

I had fishtail ferns,Broms,spathiphilum [unsure spelling]
under mine.If you put plenty of mulch under and top it up
regularly theres quite a few small shallow rooted running
plants that will grow.Could suggest more but not sure how
cold it gets at your place.The Broms do really well here
when you put lots of loose pine bark around them+mulch
mulch mulch.

I lied. In the long run, my agapanthus did terrible underneath the bottlebrush tree. They finally had to be moved in order to save them. I'm now a believer that bottlebrush poison other plants. A just put some caladium under there... we'll see how they do.

The stuff the tree drops, the red bloom and the little "corns" it drops kill everything.

I gave an Arizona cypress that is planted close to a bottlebrush. The “needles” next to it are turning brown But the branch is still green. The entire tree looks healthy except that area. Could it be the bottlebrush causing this to happen?

Well, am a consultant from Kenya, facing a bottle brush leaves problem. We have a half an acre plot we are supposed to improve in regard to the outdoors. We have bottle brush trees all along the fence of the premises. What could someone do under the trees? What could we have in terms of the soft landscape?