based on the pic provided.. yes.. kill them ...

if you cut them to the ground.. they are dead..

since they are so close to the house.. with stuff in front of them ... i dont think.. based on the pic.. you will be going in there and grinding out stumps...

so just cut them to the ground ... and pull them out ...

might change my mind.. if you offer another pic

if you have a tree saw.. or a sawzall.. i dont know why you would have to hire it out... but all the power to ya.. if you do [it helps to buy a tree saw.. for the sawzall for about 9 bucks]

ken

Here are the pictures, The expense to remove all 6 trees is a lot, so I want an opinion whtehr it is really worth it. If it is going to be a probelm for house or the foundation, I will definotely remove it. But if I decide to leave them, it will be very hard to live with it every summer:)

yard · More Info

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It is a good idea to transplant them somewhere. Thank you very much!

Will keep poking up in front of the windows where they are now, you need something shorter growing in those spots. Should be possible to move them at the right time of year, if you have a use for them elsewhere on the property. But if you are looking at paying quite a bit to have someone do it for you it might be cheaper to cut them down and buy new shrubs for where you wanted to re-plant these.

thx for the pix ... glad YOU thought of it.. lol ..

you can buy those.. smaller for ten bucks at bigboxstore ... for 30 dollars.. it is NOT worth moving them ... [i see embo said the same]

and i agree its probably cost prohibitive to pay to have them removed ...

but i dont understand.. why you cant do it yourself .. or throw 50 bucks at a strapping young man down the street to dig them out for you ...

if you insist on replanting something there. .. then perhaps just cutting them to the ground is not an option ...

a nice clematis would be perfect for the porch side ...

i am a bit stymied by the wall/window.. there just isnt much room there.. for anything of height .. in the tree/conifer world ...

perhaps a window box .. with some trailing plants.. would be nice ...

ken

vnc19,

If you wait until fall, you can put an ad in your local paper and offer them for free to anyone who will come dig them out. People would like to have those bushes, landscaping is expensive and not everyone has a lot of money for it, so, it's just an idea.

I know you would have someone come dig them out and take them home. But, wait until the fall where you live, otherwise they will die due to the heat.

Just a thought.

I think you could post on CL right now and offer them in exchange for digging. You might need to have a couple of bags of soil to fill in the holes that taker is going to leave. Assuming you get a quick response, you have from now til fall to decide what you want to put there.

Either CL or as Ken suggests, find a young guy to do it for $50.

When you think about it foundation shrubbery causes more problems than what its worth. Who made up the rule that shrubbery has to be planted at the foundation? I've heard some of the most absurd comments about shrubs are needed to "frame" the building, etc. In the house that I grew up in, we never had a wet basement until someone planted shrubs along the foundation. Winter snow comes crashing off the slate roof and damages the shrubs.

Consider this treatment which works either with first floor or basement windows. It is kind of old world looking, no mowing, trimming or weedwacking. Nothing in the way of stepladders. Acid loving shrubs resent the lime that leaches out of the masonry of the building. In this case a church in Maryland that has fried oyster suppers, you can see where the oyster shells wind up. :)

Shrubs planted at the foundation (especially conifers) invaribly wind up either leaning or bare on one side. I recommend planting them elsewhere and leave the foundation like this.

Thank you all for your valuable advice. I found someone who is ready to help us for a reaonable price.

make sure you and they know where the utilities are ..

what was the ultimate decision???

ken

I actually like foundation plantings, and I don't like those. They are going to grow taller and block the windows. Also, I've always found arborvitae overused and boring...they don't produce flowers, they don't produce fruit, they aren't good for pollinators, they don't create a wooded feel. If you are going to go with foundation plantings, pick something decorative, and something that is either shorter or takes to aggressive pruning.

Foundation plantings are for hiding ugly exposed foundations, something not all buildings have. As with the planting of any other beds foundation beds should be populated with plants that become about 1 1/2 times as tall as the bed is wide at the point each kind is planted, in order to look "right". So if a bed is 3' deep right where there are windows that would be blocked by 4 1/2' tall shrubs then the bed is probably too wide for the setting as well.

don't produce flowers, they don't produce fruit, they aren't good for pollinators

Different types of plants have different garden uses, a fully realized scene incorporates a variety of different groups including evergreen conifers, broad leaved evergreens (climate permitting), deciduous trees and shrubs, climbing plants, perennials, annuals and bulbs. And any and all plant species native to a particular region can be very valuable to certain wildlife species. Evergreen conifers such as arborvitae can be important sources of shelter or provide places to conceal nests, for instance.

Decoration isn't the only function of foundation plantings. Evergreens on the North or windier side of the house can create dead airspace and promote energy efficiency. Plantings that shade (and conceal) an air conditioner are good for both energy efficiency and aesthetics. However, the major reason a lot of people use them is they are easier to mow around. You plant a shrub in the middle of a lawn, you have to mow around it. You have to mow around the house already, so many stick all the stuff they want to plant up against the house. Not my favorite strategy, but it beats a yard with nothing but grass.

The major benefits of arborvitae in foundation plantings are it is evergreen and slender and you can stick them between windows while sticking smaller things under them. You could actually compromise...replace the arborvitae in front of the windows with something smaller and flowering.

Given a limited lot size, I figure most plants have to do "double duty". Holy and Eastern Red Cedar are good shelter for animals and have attractive berries that provide food to birds. Rhododendron is evergreen and provides shelter, plus has flowers.

Also, I'm just sick of arborvitae. Seriously overused where I am.

Landscaping for Energy Conservation

"Foundation plantings" are a landscape design convention held over from Victorian times when shielding or disguising bare stone or concrete foundations was popular/necessary and popular landscape architects of that time promoted the idea of 'grounding' the house to the landscape for a more natural look.

Like the omnipresent lawn, they may or may not have relevance to today's landscapes. And it is a matter almost entirely of personal taste. Certainly lot sizes have shrunk significantly over the years so that the beds that defined a foundation planting are now so tight and restricted that almost nothing other than annuals and a few perennials fit. That appears to be the case in at least part of the OP's garden, where the concrete walkway only allows a very narrow space for any sort of planting bed.

But if the foundation bed is designed to be generously deep enough (a 6' minimum - deeper is better) then it allows for planting some evergreen material (mixed with deciduous if desired) to compliment the house and welcome visitors, provided that it is of proper scale. And if well-designed and with proper consideration to plant selection, foundation plantings pose no issue to either the structure or the foundation.

btw, the design lingo now popular for this front of the house planting is 'the entry garden' :-)

A house fire next door two weeks ago demonstrated the added fire risk of shrubs planted next to a house, even here in Western Washington, the "wet side of the mountains". A fire started at the pool pump at a corner of the house, spread to the shrubbery, then to an outside wall of the house and to the attic. My neighbors will be out of their house for 6 months while it's repaired.

I've now become much more serious about ripping out the salal (Gaultheria shallon) growing against the back side of the house, as it's a twiggy jungle that probably would burn well.

Many conifers are particularly flammable, maybe some of those were involved in this episode. Unlike these often quite resinous or quite close-branching plants I wouldn't expect salal to turn instantly into a torch.

Embothrium - good point that different species of plants vary in their flammability. In the case of our neighbors' fire, it was the huge plume of smoke and the crackling sound from the shrubbery that caught our attention, while the children were still in the house. The planting consisted of mature broad-leaved shrubs - 3 euonymous, a laurel, something burned beyond recognition and a Japanese maple approaching 20 ft high. It'll be interesting to see if the maple survives, as parts of it are scorched. But I should have said that the siding caught fire before the shrubs.

vnc19 - I think others have given you good advice concerning your foundation bed.