Evergreen advice please

@Sheal - no, they stretch approximately half the length of the lawn, then there is an azalea followed by a laurel, and then a flower bed; the fence runs along behind all of them - - after the flowerbed, it then has almost the same distance again before it reaches the house (along the side of the patio.

I'll try and find a photo

 

The conifers are just visible on the right hand side, toward the back of the garden. This is an OLD photo!! There is now a greenhouse and a metal shed where the shed and polytunnel are on the left, and the tree on the left blew down and is no longer.

The conifers are higher, but no wider, and the one being removed is nearest to the back of the garden. You can also just make out the laurel at the end of the row of trees.

EDIT - in fact, you can see an old camelia in front of the laurel that is also gone now (it had been neglected before I moved in and was diseased)

 

I like your thinking @Sheal - but, to throw a spanner in the works there is now a plum tree at the patio end of that border, with a honeysuckle on the fence behind it. Beside that, running along the small wall that divides the lawn from the patio is a patch of raspberry plants, so I am not sure where I would place a clematis (I do like Montana & Armandii by the way).

At the other end, I have sculpted the lawn back to create a larger border where the lilac tree is, so there is a bit of room to plant something there.

Might be best if I take a more up to date photo and post back with it. It will be the weekend at the earliest until I am home in daylight hours though.

 

Sorry, I have changed the garden quite a bit since that picture was taken (in fact, even I didn't realise how much!). I will get an up to date photo first, and then we can go from there. Thanks

 

Aye, true - but a fresh pair of eyes and a different perspective is always good, and its one of the benefits of GC?

 

Just remember that they can grow up to a metre a year now that they're established so I would lower them as much as possible and as soon as possible. They can also be cut back, like a hedge, as long as you don't go as far as any brown parts. A light trim of the front of them wouldn't go amiss and take a foot off the top as soon as possible. They'll need cutting at least twice a year. As Mowerman says, you turn your back on them and they'll get totally out of hand.

 

I must admit that they do look more like Cham. In which case they won't have as big a central trunk as Leylandii. Still not too much difference in shortening.

I was wondering about them as FC hinted that they would have been planted by the landlord and I thought FC had been in residence too long for them to have only reached 8ft.

I agree that most conifers don't have roots that are too much bother unless they have been growing for a long time. Most of them have thinner feeding roots that spread horizontally but are fairly easy to cut through or rip out. The tap root is the one that gives problems when it's older as it tends to go straight down and get quite thick. Even removing that isn't too hard if you only cut the tree down to 4ft, remove all side branches and then use the remaining trunk as a lever. Dig around the base (a spade easily cuts through the feeder roots), cut any exposed, branched, tap roots then haul away at the top of the trunk.

 

It's very rare for conifers to cause damage to house structures but a combination of clay soils and shallow foundations can cause movement in buildings. These tend to occur mainly from subsidence arround the foundations from the roots removing the moisture. Actual entry of roots into foundations is unlikely unless the foundations have been damaged by subsidence.

Drains can easily be affected but this normally occurs not from subsidence but from the roots finding entry into the drains through cracks in pipes (more usually through gaps between pipe sections).

Houses built before 1950 tend to have shallow foundations (some built before 1970 have been known to have shallow foundations but not quite so common).

The major problem to houses is usually caused by deciduous trees and especially poplar, willow, oak and elm.

Regularly topping a tree does slow down the growth of roots as the trees concentrate their energy more on replacing top growth - but this is not an infallible procedure.

There are loads of websites that show how far each type of tree should be from a building and I've just grabbed one site that gives a list of root expansion.

A Guide to Tree Planting Distances