On 20 Sep, 12:15, "Mary Fisher" wrote:
"Janet Tweedy" wrote in message

...

I always thought poplars were the worst tree to have near a house as they
invariably made for the drains and also caused a lot of trouble with their
roots?

That's always said but we had two Lombardy poplars only yards from our house
and had no problem with the roots. That's just our experience, of course, it
doesn't mean that the saying isn't true.

One of ours blew down during a 90mph wind years ago. It's roots did spread
very far out - but in all directions, they weren't far under the surface.
Next door's lawn was uprooted :-( Luckily the branches were caught in the
fork of a pear tree at the other side of the garden so we could still get
underneath to deal with it.


There's a row of these poplars along the bottom of our gardens. The
story is that there was a stream running aloing there and it was
market gardens before they built on it. The trees are known to be
thirsty and were put there deliberately to drain the ground - quite
progressive thinking for Victorian builders. 100+ years later they are
still there. We had boreholes sunk next to our house and the roots
have not invaded, but they are definitely on the higher-risk list for
insurance purposes.