Most gardeners have a cautionary tale (or two) about the plant they wish they’d never planted. When that plant is next to your home, the stakes get higher. Poorly chosen plants’ roots may get into your foundation, pull off your shingles, block your windows, attract pests, and make your entry less welcoming to visitors. Here, experts weigh in on common mistakes to avoid when growing plants near your house.
- Cynthia Brian is a television and radio garden commentator.
- Mason Vollmer is a Colorado arborist and horticultural educator.
- Denise Schreiber is a gardening author and former greenhouse grower.
- Karina Sinclair is a managing editor of Landscape Trades.
- Sue Goetz is a garden designer and horticulturist.
1. No Buffer Zone
Foundation plantings skirting the house used to be all the rage, but experts now recommend keeping a plant-free buffer zone of at least one foot, and up to five or more feet to reduce combustible “fuel” if your area is prone to wildfires. Municipalities and insurance companies’ recommendations on safe planting for fire zones vary widely by location.
Planting up close to the house walls can encourage roots to get into your water pipes, foster plant diseases by reducing air circulation, or give rodents and termites a nesting place or ladder to your eaves.
“I never recommend planting ivy, bamboo, or trumpet vines near a house because of the structural damage they will cause,” says Cynthia Brian, a television and radio garden commentator based in California.
“Moisture will be trapped, foundations will be ruined, and the vines will creep into all cracks and crevices. Pests, rats, squirrels, and other critters will follow to set up their homes.” Try to give your house a plant-free trench as wide as you can spare, perhaps filled with gravel.
2. Not Considering Mature Size
The next consideration is one of size. It’s easy to underestimate the ultimate size of a potted sapling or shrub at the nursery, so it pays to do some research before planting. Even the nursery tags can be confusing—conifers often list a 10-year height and width, which can surprise you on year 12. Also, in rich soil or optimal conditions, plants often grow bigger than their estimates. It’s better to overestimate your tree’s span.
Colorado arborist and horticultural educator Mason Vollmer recommends takin special care when siting big conifers, whose placement will impact your home’s temperature and light among other things.
“I would recommend not planting large evergreen trees such as spruce, fir, and pine, too close to buildings, driveways, and other hard structures. Think of their mature height and how those shadows can affect snowmelt and temperature as well as practical maintenance issues such as fire prevention, pruning, or spraying. If you have the room, they function best as windbreaks and backdrops, on the prevailing wind side well away, say 50-80 inches out.”
Some plants marketed for hedges or foundation plants require excessive pruning to keep them from growing into their natural form. For example, popular yews (Taxus spp.), which gardening author and former greenhouse grower Denise Schreiber, says should never be planted near a house. “They are not meant to be pruned into green meatballs nor are they a hedge. They are actually a beautiful small tree with wonderful exfoliating bark that is shade of reds and browns.”
Karina Sinclair, British Columbia-based managing editor of Landscape Trades, recommends keeping windows, doors, and pathways clear for safety purposes, based on Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) principles. “You’d certainly want to avoid any plants that create blind spots and hiding places or block windows and sight lines,” she says.
3. Going Overboard with Fragrant Plants
Scent is both ephemeral and highly subjective. While some may be transported by the romance of a sweet daphne or daffodil, others may find them overwhelming in close quarters.
Sue Goetz, Washington garden designer and horticulturist, says some aromatic plants should be placed at a distance from the house, while others should be avoided altogether. She had a client who removed a deck-adjacent hedge of Viburnum tinus, known for its easy-care evergreen foliage, because they disliked the “stinky wet dog” smell when blooming.
Goetz also calls out juniper and boxwood foliage for notoriously smelling like cat urine, hawthorn tree flowers for smelling like carrion, and the flashy flowers of crown fritillaria (Fritillaria imperialis) bulbs for mimicking a skunk.
Just as a fragrant lily delightfully wafting in open air may overwhelm when set in a dining room vase, even desirable scents may be supercharged in small spaces.
“Although I love the smell of daphnes and sarcococca,” says Goetz, “many clients say the intensity near a house is too much—much better away from the home to avoid concentration of fragrance near windows, doors, or under eaves where the scent is captured or lingers.”
4. Bee-Attracting Plants Too Near High Traffic Areas
Flowers that will attract lots of bees may be a wonderful way to support pollinators and other beneficial insects, but if they’re too near pathways and entrances, the chance of unpleasant insect interactions will increase. “We all want to have plants for pollinators, but buzzing bees enjoying beebalm around a front entrance might be nerve-wracking for visitors who are allergic,” says Sinclair.
Consider siting bee magnets like annual lacy phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia), perennial bee balm (Monarda spp), lavender (Lavandula spp.), or caryopteris shrubs away from major pathways, or behind a low shrub hedge.
Edward Gohlich
5. Creating a Thorny Welcome
Thorny plants, from barberry (Berberis), cacti, and roses are sometimes recommended as privacy barriers on the edge of properties, or to discourage dogs or deer from approaching cherished plants, but planting them next to your entry or pathways may send the wrong message to visitors you hope to welcome.
“Roses are some of my absolute favorite plants to suggest to clients, however, keep them far enough away from a path or building so their thorns don’t intimidate a visitor,” says Brian.
“I recently hosted a garden party and about an hour before my guests arrived, I noticed that one of my favorite perfume roses near the house had been brutally pruned. My husband confessed to the slaughter, saying, ‘As I was filling the fountain, the rose bush attacked me.’ The lesson I learned is that no matter how beautiful or fragrant, keep the thorny, prickly, and scratchy specimens a distance from people.”
Kathy Jentz, garden speaker and editor of Washington Gardener magazine in Washington, D.C., says you can have the dream of a rose-covered doorway with climbing heirloom rose ‘Zephirine Drouhin,’ notable for cherry pink fragrant flowers—and being completely thornless.
6. Underestimating Vigorous Roots and Vines
Plants with deep or wide-reaching roots can be a hazard to your foundation and your homes’ sewer system. Willows, for instance, are notorious for sending their shallow roots to seek water 20 or 30 feet away. The National Garden Association suggests estimating that most trees will extend 1.5 times their height underground.
You can mitigate these effects by choosing plants that are known to have compact root systems or choosing compact versions of a more aggressive grower.
Above ground, vines are among some of the most problematic plants to grow close to or on your house. For example, wisteria is popular vine that requires a sturdy support like a reinforced arbor (ideally not attached to your house) as well as pruning multiple times a year to keep it in bounds. Evergreen ivy (Hedera spp.) spreads quickly above and below ground and attaches to trees and structures via sticky holdfasts that can weaken siding and shingles.
