The message
from SusieThompson contains these words:

In message , Janet Baraclough
writes
Some house insurers and mortgage surveys now question the distance
between the building and any trees. If one is selling, buying,
mortgaging or changing insurers it's something to bear in mind.

As you know, Janet, we're going to be starting a new garden from scratch
towards the end of this year. I've been trying to work out the
distances for planting a couple of native larch, hollies, birches plus
abies koreana and juniperus scopulorum 'Skyrocket' amongst other
evergreens. All I want is an idea of the basic structure plan of the
garden early on, so that if I happen to spot a bargain something or
another appropriate to the planting when we're over on the mainland, I
can keep it watered and potted up until the day comes.

Surely the type of root system that any tree has must determine any long
term problems around buildings, etc? As far as I can remember, I don't
think that I've ever seen mention anywhere of this in a book, catalogue,
etc. "So and so a tree has this or that type of root system."

Some trees will send their roots an astonishing distance towards
water/dripping drains; poplar, willow and alder for example. Our
neighbour has a young ash about 20 ft high, whose roots until recently
infested at least 50 ft across my veg garden. I've warned him, the sad
amputee might blow over in his direction :-). Others have very dense
surface roots which will dry the soil surface and prevent almost
anything else growing beneath the tree, and larch is one of those; plus,
it's *extremely* fast growing; and in an exposed position, it can drop
branches in high winds. I imagine Shiskine is quite a wind funnel in
winter.So lovely though it is, I wouldn't plant larch in your new plot.
And another thing with larch; even in the deep soil of my last garden,
they made large roots on the soil surface as thick as my arm; which
would cause havoc if they were near paved paths, mowers etc. Birch also
grows very fast.

What sort of roots do the abies
and juniper have? Are they suitable for planting anywhere near a house
wall - or what's the distance they need to be away from it?

Abies koreana is lovely; it's smaller and slow and has large crops of
blue cones at a really young age. I think it or the juniper would be
much safer bets for you..or holly, which is slow to start and easy to
limit in size. Or, some kind of rowan, all of which should do
brilliantly here. There are all sorts of smallish pretty ones with
yellow, pink or white berries and I've never known their roots spread
far.

BTW - When did we last have any rain here on the Island?

Can't remember, wonderful isn't it :-). And it won't rain tomorrow,
because it's Wednesday, and it hasn't rained on a Wednesday morning yet
this year. Good weather for laying new land drains, which is John's
job-in-hand atm. He's got huge black plastic ones coiling about in the
back garden like that film about giant worms.

It's dry as
dust over here in far flung Lamlash. Godot, our resident cock pheasant,
is sitting on the wind sill in front of me, stuffing corn for all he's
worth, as I'm typing this. Red squirrels are still visiting the bird
table regularly and we have four or more siskins visiting the peanut
feeder. I read in a book recently that they're attracted more to
feeders which are orange or red in colour. Ours is orange, but that
doesn't necessarily prove anything!

Our siskins are yuppies who like stainless steel. I'm still collecting
seaweed in vast amounts, despite the recent discouraging news about it
being irradiated by Sellafield so a possible health hazard for veg
growing on the west coast of Scotland. Too late, I've already dug in
tons of it.Those little brown hoppers who live in seaweed keep coming
indoors on the dog's feet or mine, and leaping round the sitting room
carpet at night..looks like a slum infestation.

Janet.