Garden plant advice

stuart45

It's not just the trees within a metre of the walls. Ones further away can affect the foundations, but to a lesser extent. The roots don't have to reach the walls to take water away from the clay. 
However, I'd say that if the height is kept to around 6ft with a modern foundation there probably won't be any issues.

stuart45

1404 said:

stuart45 said:

1404 said:

stuart45 said:

Damage to the foundations depends on your soil type. Shrinkable clays can be affected. It also depends on how deep your foundations are, and how tall you allow them to grow. For example, on a highly shrinkage clay a moderate water demand tree like a Cherry laurel allowed to reach it's mature height within 1 metre of the wall would require a foundation depth of 2.2 metres.

Yes, this area is clay, apparently. The plants will be kept as 6 feet (or just over) in height.

Any idea how I can find out the foundation depth? This is Redrow townhouse which is 22 years old. 

Not all clays are highly shrinkable. There's high, medium and low. The foundations on a modern house are likely to be about 1 metre, but a test hole is the only sure way to know.

Does anyone know how I can find out if my soil is shrinkable clay?

It depends where you live. There are maps on the net showing the areas with the different types. You can also get it tested. You can do the roll test yourself.
Roll a piece along a board, and the easier it breaks up, the less shrinkable it is, as it contains more sand. You local Building Control will probably have some idea.

Jellynailer

I have been advised that roots of a tree are as long underground as the tree is tall.  This was in reference to a Rowan tree on my neighbours property.  Don't know about laurel but the same might apply.

FreeBear

housebuyer143 said:

What you will find and very quickly is it will engulf the side of your house and if you don't cut it back then the large trunks could eventually many years down the line cause problems. I would cut it back hard next to the house to make sure you always have a gap. Keep on top of it and I don't think it will cause issues to the brickwork. It will entwine with that fence though and I imagine it will ruin it.

Not sure about the roots underground but my Laurel is a beast and you will forever be cutting it back. Don't miss a year or it will be a more than a foot taller the following year. 

Laurel is best pruned at ground level and then the roots dug out. Failure to remove the roots will see it suckering and coming back with a vengeance. Had one in my front garden, and despite pruning at ground level a couple of times, it still shot back up. Only after having a mini-digger for the day did it finally go. Laurel is a fast growing thug of a plant, and like leylandii, totally unsuited for a small garden.

For hedging, I quite like myrtle - Fairly compact, evergreen, and no where near as invasive as laurel. As a plus, you get a nice scent from the leaves & flowers. Not as fast growing, but would be better suited as the OP's laurel is planted too close to the fence to bush out properly.

clive0510

About 15 yrs ago my neighbour planted a laurel hedge between my back garden and his. but unfortunately he's no longer in good health and is unable to cut it back each year. so hes had the whole lot cut down to ground level. and those plants, which were miniscule when he planted them, had trunks on them about a foot in diameter at the base. so they will certainly need maintaining. 

Lorian

It will soon overcome the metal railings and it will just look like a hedge but if you are careful you can use the railings to run the cutter over to make a nice sharp level cut. If you don't do this you run the risk of a knock on the door from people complaining you are blocking the passage.

Laurel can be bit of a challenge to cut straight without a powerful trimmer.

Aim to be cutting it every end of may and end of August checking for no nests first. Tend to be nests if it's more than 6 foot tall in my experience.

1404

FreeBear said:

housebuyer143 said:

What you will find and very quickly is it will engulf the side of your house and if you don't cut it back then the large trunks could eventually many years down the line cause problems. I would cut it back hard next to the house to make sure you always have a gap. Keep on top of it and I don't think it will cause issues to the brickwork. It will entwine with that fence though and I imagine it will ruin it.

Not sure about the roots underground but my Laurel is a beast and you will forever be cutting it back. Don't miss a year or it will be a more than a foot taller the following year. 

Laurel is best pruned at ground level and then the roots dug out. Failure to remove the roots will see it suckering and coming back with a vengeance. Had one in my front garden, and despite pruning at ground level a couple of times, it still shot back up. Only after having a mini-digger for the day did it finally go. Laurel is a fast growing thug of a plant, and like leylandii, totally unsuited for a small garden.

For hedging, I quite like myrtle - Fairly compact, evergreen, and no where near as invasive as laurel. As a plus, you get a nice scent from the leaves & flowers. Not as fast growing, but would be better suited as the OP's laurel is planted too close to the fence to bush out properly.

I've just looked up Myrtle and it's a sun lover. Where these plants are gets very little sun. Pretty much always in the shade. 

Sarahspangles

We removed a similar hedge on a boundary, it was starting to damage the footway.  OH had lots of fun with a mini digger removing the rootballs. As it was on top of a terraced bit of the garden, the impact inside the boundary was limited to suckering for the next three years until we’d rooted out all the bits of root that had worked their way under the first terrace.

It’s a common fallacy that a tree or shrub will have a root zone equal in spread to the height of the tree, when it is the pruned or trimmed height you’re going by. If a small tree would naturally grow to 5m, it could still have a 5m diameter root zone. If it’s cut back at 3m to 1.5m it will use its root zone to put back as much growth as possible each subsequent year, since genetically it’s a 5m tree. It might be slowed down a bit in its re growth by having less top growth for photosynthesis, but it won’t jettison roots.

You can restrict the size of a tree or shrub by restricting its root zone, that’s how bonsais are made.

1404

Sarahspangles said:

We removed a similar hedge on a boundary, it was starting to damage the footway.  OH had lots of fun with a mini digger removing the rootballs. As it was on top of a terraced bit of the garden, the impact inside the boundary was limited to suckering for the next three years until we’d rooted out all the bits of root that had worked their way under the first terrace.

It’s a common fallacy that a tree or shrub will have a root zone equal in spread to the height of the tree, when it is the pruned or trimmed height you’re going by. If a small tree would naturally grow to 5m, it could still have a 5m diameter root zone. If it’s cut back at 3m to 1.5m it will use its root zone to put back as much growth as possible each subsequent year, since genetically it’s a 5m tree. It might be slowed down a bit in its re growth by having less top growth for photosynthesis, but it won’t jettison roots.

You can restrict the size of a tree or shrub by restricting its root zone, that’s how bonsais are made.

How do you restrict the root zone? Just by regular pruning to prevent the plant ever becoming more than 6ft (in my case with my Cherry Laurels)?

BarelySentientAI

1404 said:

Sarahspangles said:

We removed a similar hedge on a boundary, it was starting to damage the footway.  OH had lots of fun with a mini digger removing the rootballs. As it was on top of a terraced bit of the garden, the impact inside the boundary was limited to suckering for the next three years until we’d rooted out all the bits of root that had worked their way under the first terrace.

It’s a common fallacy that a tree or shrub will have a root zone equal in spread to the height of the tree, when it is the pruned or trimmed height you’re going by. If a small tree would naturally grow to 5m, it could still have a 5m diameter root zone. If it’s cut back at 3m to 1.5m it will use its root zone to put back as much growth as possible each subsequent year, since genetically it’s a 5m tree. It might be slowed down a bit in its re growth by having less top growth for photosynthesis, but it won’t jettison roots.

You can restrict the size of a tree or shrub by restricting its root zone, that’s how bonsais are made.

How do you restrict the root zone? Just by regular pruning to prevent the plant ever becoming more than 6ft (in my case with my Cherry Laurels)?

By having it in a pot.