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shrub damage to house wall

Do these shrubs so close to a house wall pose any future problems for the house brickwork?

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Thanks for advice.

Reply to
john hamilton
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Doesn't look like it: they seem to be in a raised trough of their own in any case. If this trough is joined to your house wall - which we can't tell from the pic - with no waterproof membrane between, then the bushes may actually be keeping the damp out of your house.

High time to get out the sheers and prune it hard and neat back to the fence, as it is getting very leggy and you do not want those messy twigs to become messy branches.

S
Reply to
Spamlet

Probably no harm, but, have you not heard the word, prune? I don't allow any bush to touch my house.

Reply to
Frank

house wall pose any future problems for the

What is that, euonymous, maybe? Should take pruning wonderfully. I wouldn't use shears, but I don't like an overly manicured look.

Looks like a little weeding is in order, too. Something else is growing up in there. Stay on top of it.

My yard is a weedy mess; I've got glossy buckthorn growing up everywhere. I regret letting it get out of hand. Now it's going to be a buttload of work to hack it down and keep it down.

Cindy Hamilton

Reply to
Cindy Hamilton

or more likely the complete opposite

Jim K

Reply to
Jim K

No: bushes transpire a huge amount as you will find if you ever try to dig up a privet hedge: always bone dry and rock hard beneath. Without the shrubs, if the trough butts straight to the house wall (which does not look to be the case.) there is nothing to use up any rain water and some might get into the house wall. However, if said trough is anything like one beside my house, the main reason for it being built will have been to get rid of loads of old bricks and rubble, and there will only be a thin layer of actual soil on top - as I found when I tried to deep dig it to grow veg! In that case water just runs straight out the bottom anyway.

S
Reply to
Spamlet

What is that, euonymous, maybe? Should take pruning wonderfully. I wouldn't use shears, but I don't like an overly manicured look.

Looks like a little weeding is in order, too. Something else is growing up in there. Stay on top of it.

My yard is a weedy mess; I've got glossy buckthorn growing up everywhere. I regret letting it get out of hand. Now it's going to be a buttload of work to hack it down and keep it down.

Cindy Hamilton

Not sure what you mean by 'glossy buckthorn' - though I've had terrible problems with berberis/mahonia which puts out roots all over the place and is impervious to weedkillers. With bushes that sucker, digging/winching them up is the only way: the more you cut the more they spread. Whole hillsides round here have been covered in dogwood, thanks to well meaning 'scrub bashing' events, just making more problems for later.

S
Reply to
Spamlet

Here's the enemy (although this page focuses mainly on common buckthorn, it also talks about glossy buckthorn):

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The problem for me is that the damned birds eat the berries and crap them out wherever they perch, resulting in buckthorn seedlings under every tree in my yard, and mixed in with the desirable shrubs.

Cindy Hamilton

Reply to
Cindy Hamilton

??so your fantasy damp treatment firm would advocate planting privet around a house?

intelesting...

Jim K

Reply to
Jim K

Well, in most cases, next to the wall is usually much too dry rather than too wet for bushes - or plants of any kind in fact. I have runner beans growing up the back wall, and I could leave the hose on them all day without waterlogging them: but we are on chalk here. Where there has been damp it's generally from bad guttering and roof tiling than from below. And our neighbour's drive is about 8' above the side of our house's side passage, so we do get rather more of 'his' water than we would like - it's probably the only thing keeping the bushes on that side alive though so I shouldn't complain :-)

S
Reply to
Spamlet

A cousin of mine had to dig up a lovely plant growing next to the wall of her house. It's an old crofthouse, with rubble walls, and the roots crept right through to the living room...

Reply to
S Viemeister

Here's the enemy (although this page focuses mainly on common buckthorn, it also talks about glossy buckthorn):

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The problem for me is that the damned birds eat the berries and crap them out wherever they perch, resulting in buckthorn seedlings under every tree in my yard, and mixed in with the desirable shrubs.

Cindy Hamilton

Ah, well this is supposed to be *UK* d-i-y, but what an excellent website your Wisconsin DNR has produced! (US authorities seem to be very clear and open with botanical data compared with the UK where 'traditionally' collectors of such data have been rather reluctant to share. They are improving though.)

Here (Luton UK) we have similar problems with the pigeons and ivy berries, but the ivy flowers are so important for the bees and late (Red Admiral) butterflies, I put up with a little more weeding than I might otherwise like: just wish the pigeons didn't seem to specifically target one particular hellebore though - it's only supposed to have white *flowers*!

A teaspoon of buckthorn berries is supposed to be an effective laxative if I recall correctly. Here, the plant is only really common along chalky hillsides, where the unwary will often confuse it with dogwood (which is much more problematic, because of the suckers.).

Nice to hear from you,

S
Reply to
Spamlet

Which rather indicates there may have been some damp in there - perhaps a weeping pipe - or the house was built where the water table was rather higher than ideal. In a croft, perhaps unsurprising. Under such conditions any plant with rhizomes or suckers is going to spread that way. That said: plenty of old dry stone walls look so much the better for the plants that have bound them all together over centuries.

Cheers,

S
Reply to
Spamlet

You should be ok. If you had this shrub/bush near your place, it may be ruined. Rumor has it, this shrub did a lot of damage in the USA.

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Reply to
Hoot

They will hold moisture , the house walls wont dry quickly and yes you will have problems. Cut it back several feet, besides it looks butt ugly.

Reply to
ransley

house wall pose any future problems for the

They don't look like prunes (which if they are anything like damsons only drier, will invade everything.) It's the roots that cause the problems in having trees and shrubs near buildings. Anything that separates the matrix is a danger to the integrity of the building.

As for hedges drying a soil, they also dampen it in humid weather as leaves will put water into the ground on foggy or misty days. (Which is one of the biggest banes to histericans trying to make pieces fit in with mental-chronology. Not the only problem they don't face though, there's plenty more unconsidered where that came from.)

Reply to
Weatherlawyer

If there isn't sufficient space to mow behind foliage, it's too close to the structure.

Plants attract bugs, etc. -----

- gpsman

Reply to
gpsman

They will hold moisture , the house walls wont dry quickly and yes you will have problems. Cut it back several feet, besides it looks butt ugly. =================================================================================

Thanks to all. There is no trough. The thing on the right is the back upright of a rustic wooden seat. The shrubs go directly into the ground.

Reply to
john hamilton

.

It was cross-posted to alt.home.repair, which is where I saw it.

I let a few milkweed grow up for the monarch butterflies. Drives my husband crazy, since they're "weeds".

Likewise.

Cindy Hamilton

Reply to
Cindy Hamilton

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