It is common practice to plant too close together and too close to the
house. Do whatever pleases your eye. You can always remove plants
years down the road if things get too big or too crowded. Some plants
look better with space, others planted in groupings. My personal
preference is to plant annuals close together and perennials farther
apart or plant annuals between the perrenials to fill up the space
temporarily. For example, I'd plant the spireas 5' apart and put a
marigold, coleus, or poppy plants between each one. Varying tecture,
height, and color makes a better design and a healthier garden.

On Sun, 27 Apr 2003 01:12:15 -0500, griffon
wrote:

One of my neighbors loves my gardens, the other doesn't complain about
them much but does frequently remind me that I am planting things too
close together. I typically look up a shrub, see how fast it grows
and how large it will get, how much it can be pruned and whether this
will damage the look, and then plant as close as possible to
surrounding plants. I have spireas planted about three feet apart
that are said to get 5x5 eventually. I like the effect of different
shrubs and perennials growing together and forming a mass of different
textures and colors, rather than a plant here and there with tons of
pine bark, rock, etc around it. I was curious how other gardeners
feel about this. Do you feel that planting things closely together
creates an unattractive landscape or the opposite? More importantly,
am I likely to shorten the lives of some plants by not giving them
enough breathing room? I tend to plant some things like roses with a
lot of space between them and small short plants underneath and around
roses which allows good air flow, but I am wondering about other
things.