Don’t Grow These Plants Next to Your House

By Kelly Miller

Plants next to your house are known as “foundation plants.” This space is prime real estate for attractive landscaping. However, some foundation plants can do serious damage. Trees and shrubs have powerful roots that can damage a home’s structure. Smaller plants can cause a variety of problems, too, such as coating a wall in vines or attracting messy wildlife too close for comfort.

Here are some key things to know to avoid putting hazardous plants too close to your house, along with some specific landscaping plants to avoid.

How Much of a Buffer Zone is Needed for Plants Next to Your House?

Vegetation around a home has the potential to reduce airflow, trap moisture, and press against walls causing damage. That’s why it’s important to put some distance between structures and plants. Additional problems that can be created from planting too close to your house may include:

• Attracting termites and other insects or animal pests.
• Contact damage or discoloration to siding.
• Shifting, cracks, or rotting around the house foundation.
• Security issues can be created when large plants are allowed to grow close to, or in front of, windows. Tall or dense foliage offers home intruders a more secure place to hide.

To reduce the risk of these hazards, avoid tall and deep-rooted foundation plants. Turf grass or other low-growing groundcover may be suitable, as long as the grading prevents water from pooling close to the foundation.

For any plants other than well-maintained groundcover, you should have a buffer zone of at least one foot around the home. In areas with wildfire hazards, this buffer should be significantly wider and more urgently maintained.

Trees and Shrubs with Aggressive Roots to Avoid Growing Near Your House

Foundation plants with aggressive root systems can crack foundations, uplift pavement, and damage underground pipes. These problems are often invisible until major damage appears, resulting in costly repairs.

Aggressive roots are mainly a concern with trees and shrubs. In general, the bigger the plant, the bigger the roots, and the further it should be from your home.

Tips for Planting Trees and Shrubs Near a House

Here are some essential guidelines for growing trees and shrubs at safe distances from your house.

Some common landscaping trees are known for growing tall, fast, and deep. These are trees that are great for adding shade and structure to a landscape, but they should be grown far from structures. They should also be avoided near other areas that could be damaged by powerful root growth, such as sidewalks or sewer lines.

Here are five popular home landscape trees that should always be given plenty of space to grow at a distance from your house:

Oaks

Oaks are keystone plants, and they’re a beautiful, durable, and valuable choice for centering in large spaces such as lawns. However, they’ll cause major damage if they’re too close to structures. Along with disruptive roots, their broad canopies can collide with a home’s exterior and increase lightning hazards. Every season brings a wave of tree litter such as flowers, acorns, and leaves that can accumulate on roofs, drop debris on cars and patio furniture, and clog gutters when close to the house.

Poplars

Poplars are known for rapid growth, fueled by thirsty roots. They easily invade pipes and damage drainage systems. Grow these trees at safe distances from structures and water infrastructure.

Willows

With their majestic hanging branches, weeping willows are beautiful lawn trees. However, willows evolved to grow in wet soils near streams. Their roots aggressively spread in search of water, posing a significant threat to nearby structures and underground plumbing.

Silver Maple

One of the fastest growing maple species and a favorite for landscaping in the early days of subdivisions. Silver maples grow powerful roots that can lead to shifting or cracking in a home’s foundation over time. Silver maples are also a type of soft-wooded maple so there is greater chance of them splitting or dropping branches that can cause exterior damage or drop on the roof.

Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus trees can also grow very tall and fast, with branches that may drop unexpectedly and cause damage to roofs, windows, vehicles, or people nearby. Their leaves and bark contain flammable oils, which can increase fire risk, especially in dry or windy conditions. In addition, their roots may spread widely in search of water and could interfere with foundations, drains, or underground pipes over time.

So how close to your home can you plant a tree? It depends on how large it will be when it reaches maturity. The Arbor Day Foundation recommends these distances:

Shrubs

Shrubs can be planted closer than trees to homes, but caution is still needed.

Popular landscaping shrubs are often pruned to maintain small sizes. However, they have the potential to sprawl significantly both below and above ground. Without regular trimming, many shrubs can grow much larger than the sizes we commonly see.

There should always be a gap between a shrub and a home. The plant’s foliage should never be in contact with a wall.

For very small shrubs that won’t grow taller than 3 feet (91 cm), plant at least 3 feet from the home.

For medium and large shrubs, consider the plant’s mature width to determine its buffer.  This formula is commonly used:

Divide the shrub’s mature width by two, then add one foot (30 cm).

So, if a shrub is expected to grow six feet (183 cm) wide, plant it at least four feet (122 cm) from the home.

The shrubs that should be particularly avoided close to the home (and anywhere else) are invasive species. Invasive shrubs, along with the other problems they cause, often have aggressive root and foliage growth that can damage a home’s foundation and siding. 

A few of the most harmful and common invasive shrubs to avoid include:

• Burning bush (Euonymus alatus)
• Chinese privet (Ligustrum sinense)
• Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii)
• Autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata)

Other Types of Plants to Avoid Growing Next to Your House

Aggressive roots aren’t the only hazard that landscaping plants can cause around a home’s foundation.

You should also avoid growing these plants next to your house:

Vining plants – Plants like Chinese wisteria and ivy send fast-growing, damaging vines across entryways and up walls. Vining plants are best grown on their own free-standing supporting structure such as a fence, trellis, or arbor. They’re not a good choice for plants next to your house.

Messy plants – Avoid trees and shrubs that are known for spreading debris, such as heavy leaf litter, branches, or pollen. For example, Bradford pear trees are famous for shedding branches during storms or little leaf lindens that drop flowers in the spring later followed by an abundance of winged nut-like seeds.

Trees that attract wildlife – You’ll want to keep wildlife-attracting plants away from doors and windows. Gardening for bees and other critters is a good thing, but not directly in front of entryways or close to windows.

Aggressive groundcover or perennial plants – Be careful with any groundcovers or perennial plants that spread aggressively or that form dense carpets. These may block airflow and trap moisture around the home, inviting in pests and rot. Foundation groundcover should be non-aggressive and drought-tolerant. Look for these traits in your region’s native groundcover plants.

Invasive plants – Along with considering mature size and other growing traits, always make sure the plants you choose are non-invasive in your area. Invasive plants cause a variety of problems not necessarily related to harming your home. It’s just good practice try to maintain healthy ecosystems by not encouraging the spread of invasive plant species through home landscaping.

Maintaining Tidy Landscape Borders

For foundation plants and other border areas, proper maintenance can be just as important as species selection. Learn more about well-maintained border plants here: How to Trim Hedges: A Guide to Perfectly Pruned Hedges.