My wife is the gardener at our place while I have the "maintenance" jobs of
mowing, digging, removing brush, running the tractor etc. We live in a 25
year old house that has boxwoods, redtips, and more recently, azaleas
planted next to the house. I've tried to tell my wife that it's not a good
thing to plant this stuff so close to the house (less than 2 feet) but she
ignores me and continues on. Her gardening style is a minimalist approach;
as in, "it doesn't need trimmed/pruned/removed" even if it's sprawling
across a path or covering up a window. Now we have a 12' Leyland Cypress
about a 2.5' from the corner of the house. If I try and get her to move or
trim things we end up in an argument and I just drop the subject altogether.
Should I just leave well enough alone? We have our place treated for
termites every summer, and no problems to date, although there is some
seepage problems in the basement that I can't directly attribute to the
plants being so close. Is discretion the better part of valor in this case,
and am I making much ado about nothing?.. What is your approach!?

--Cheers!
Duke