Unfortunately I can sympathize with your wife. I also seem to plant too
close to the house and DH comes out and kindly asks me if I have done any
research about the plant or checked with the wonderful people on this
newsgroup before I planted my new friend. Of course in my excitement to get
it in the ground (due to happiness, time constraints as well as being in the
mood), I want to quickly get it in the ground so I can admire the color and
the beauty. I never seem to think about the future and how big it will get
or whether it will overshadow other plants or if other plants in full bloom
will overshadow my new friend. I really hate to admit that my DH is right
(usually 95% of the time, which is truly aggravating!) and mumble the entire
time I dig up my new friend and move it away from the house or plant it in a
different spot. Of course I get over my grumbling when I can really admire
my friend the next year and seems it is in the perfect spot it is now in. I
guess after 23 years, DH is used to me by now! What I'm getting at, is maybe
it is how you approach your spouse and how you say it rather than just what
you say. It works for my DH!

loony


"Dukester" wrote in message
...
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