Hi, this weekend I planted a pair of laurels adjacent to the wall of my house to act as screening to my neighbours front garden, we intend to keep the laurels between 5 and 6 feet tall and quite shallow. My neighbour however has been kind enough to print out a number of leaflets on subsidence and has shown some concern as to the plants proximity to the wall. As we plan to keep the plants restricted in height and depth will the threat of subsidence be reduced or should we move the plants further away from the house.

The amount of sucking up of water a tree can do is related to how much leaf growth and transpiration it does (giving off water vapour through its leaves). Plainly a small bush does a lot less leaf growth and transpiring than a big tree. Also, evergreens do less leaf growth than deciduous trees, as they don't shed them every year, and also waxy leaves such as possessed by laurel transpire less than other kinds. So, all in all, a small laurel you keep under control really is going to suck up very little water from the ground.

But I would plant it 3 ft from the wall, it will have no trouble filling in that gap.