Have 3 ('Li', 'Lang', and 'Sherwood'), getting on 10 years old in southern New Jersey, ordinary suburban fill soil, USDA Zone 6A. Sure, they send out lateral roots which sucker, (especially when they hit a sidewalk or street) but just prune to base periodically or mow over them. No problem unless you leave them a few years to get woody! And, jujube is perhaps the most trouble-free of my exotic fruit trees, no fungi, viruses, bacterial problems. An occasional fruit has a tiny borer worm (I pit and dry most of my fruit), that's about it. And greatly visited by small bees when in bloom! That, and harvest by gently shaking the trunks. What more could you want in a fruit tree? Although Chinese jujube are fine in moderate rainfall temperate climate, they really shine in desert conditions, just covered with huge, sweet fruit (have seen in Las Vegas and Tuscon). Other jujubes (spina-christi, mauritiana, etc.) better in hotter or tropical climes, I think.

I am a huge fan of thyme; I must have 20 different kinds around, at least. There are two basic types. Some (e.g. Thymus vulgaris, T. mastichinus, T. capitatus) tend to form discreet little shrubs and don't run around. I get seedlings only rarely from those. Others are rhizomatous, creeping ground covers that will wander far and wide, as far as you let them, even to the point of climbing up shrubs (e.g., T. pseudolanuginosus varieties, T. thracicus, T. serpyllum). I also find seedlings of those from time to time. I also grow lots of kinds of oregano. Greek oregano does seed around and run a bit at the root, but not too badly. O. rotundifolium 'Kent Beauty' expands very slowly and I've never seen a seedling. The rest are somewhere in between these two. The only one I have banished because of over-the-top number of seedings and root-aggressiveness is Hopley's (Origanum laevigatum). The nice thing about oregano is that it is very drought tolerant and happy with whatever incidental water it happens to get and growing it on the dry side keeps it both healthy and less aggressive, I think. This post was edited by catspa on Thu, Jun 12, 14 at 13:01

Eaglesgarden: I guess because I am a cook and a person with taste. I am not defending ginger anymore that I would "defend" any other important ingredient in a recipe. Boy, I could really run with this ball into ridiculousness. If you replace a particularly significant taste (as fresh ginger is) with something that tastes completely different (powdered ginger), you will not get the same flavor results. Try making your next BBQ steak out of beef jerky! If you have never eaten a steak, the dried jerky might taste OK. If you are concerned about buying a knob of ginger (about 25 cents here), and having the balance go to waste, you may freeze it and grate it frozen into dishes you might make. It combines well with chicken dishes and chicken stock, a variety of pork dishes, and any number of Asian dishes. After tasting a small amount, you will have an idea of what it might go with (pairs wonderfully with pineapple). Jim in So Calif

If your foundation is solid -structurally sound with no cracking, etc. - then any tree roots are of no concern. A 5' tall mugo pine is only just a shrub anyway.