Can you help me identify these shurbs?


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Old 05-10-13, 06:04 AM
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Can you help me identify these shurbs?

Hi everyone. Bought a new house and trying to find out what these shrubs are.

Thanks in advance!
 
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Old 05-10-13, 04:18 PM
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I'm not much on identifying stuff, but the middle pix has a cedar in the middle. One thing for certain, if it were mine, they would all come out, no matter what they were. What you have there will, in short term, grow into your house and cause possible rot problems (not to the siding, of course). Moisture and mildew will be prevalent, as the siding will never dry out. Small growing plants in a narrow bed such as yours is always neat, and attractive. Sorry about being a party pooper.
 
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Old 05-10-13, 04:49 PM
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The shrub to the left in the second picture is a Dwarf Alberta Spruce. Even though they grow slowly, it hurts when you have to remove them (always sooner than you think) because of exactly the problems Chandler is mentioning. Been there done that.

Right size shrub beds always look strange when started, shrubs 6' away from the house. What I have learned it to fill the area around the desired plants with less expensive sacrificial ones. As the bed grows, the less desirable are removed to make room for the larger ones.

Who would ever have guesses our 6 cute little mugo pines would tower over the front of our house and require a tractor to remove. And yes, the roots were into our foundation drainage.

Bud
 
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Old 05-10-13, 04:58 PM
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Ah, spruce,not cedar. Thanks, Bud. See? The proper method of trimming a Crepe Myrtle, BTW, is with a backhoe
 
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Old 05-10-13, 05:13 PM
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No, I think you were correct, the middle one looks like a cedar. We tend to have a lot of older homes around here and there are so many that are totally lost behind well intended shrubs. The is no easy answer, but the bigger the shrubs are the farther away from the house they should be.

Bud
 
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Old 05-11-13, 03:51 AM
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I like your method of sacrificial plants to do temporary fill in. So many homes that went up during the "boom" are now faced with holly bushes 6' tall and pressing against the foundations. They were set 2' from the house Even something as innocuous as a boxwood can become an eyesore if set too close to begin with. They must have spreading room.

Planting our garden this week. Wifey doesn't understand why I set my collard plants 5' from each other. Heck they grow 3' all around, so they need the room. They look lonely right now, but in a few months she will see my logic.....maybe.
 
 

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