blueyondercustomer wrote:
Hello to everyone, new here and would like to request some guidance from the
experts!

For the past few years we've had what we've seemed to identify as an Ash
growing from seed in our garden. Actually there are about three growing but
we've managed to keep the others under control by chopping them down early
enough. Every year we have cut it down because we've never known what it
is. Now we have let it grow - and boy does it grow quickly! - we are
wondering whether it was the right thing to do.

I am aware how large it grows and that it can last a couple of hundred
years, but my question is how large can it grow in ten years, and are the
roots invasive over this period of time (including the roots of the trees we
cut down)? It is growing around ten feet away from our house in - believe
it or not - a man-made rockery. Seems fine and healthy at the moment, but
we wouldn't want it to cause any structural damage to both ours and our
neighbour's house.


Cutting the top back won't stop the roots growing at all. I'm surprised
it hasn't completely ruined your rockery! It's easy to get
unnecessarily worried about trees, especially with modern foundations,
but I think ten feet is far too close to the house for comfort: for
ash, I'd say the safe distance is probably at least thirty feet from
house or especially drains. At
http://www.gardenlaw.co.uk/trees.html
there's a table in which the safe distance is given as 21m -- over
sixty feet. This would normally be an exaggeration, but they say it's a
figure agreed by some insurers, so you may think it worth using as a
guide in case something nasty happens to your neighbour's property and
they or their insurers try to blame you. I'd remove the tree.

--
Mike.