Golden Lime?? Tree
I bought a couple of small trees a few year's ago, an acer and a golden lime. I normally check the labels to ensure that the height will be suitable for the garden. The acer is fine, it is a vigorous type but you can tell it is a small//medium size tree and it is easy to prune. The lime has been a slower grower and after 4 years is about 2.5 ms high. Again it is easy to prune. A new guy who treats my lawn spotted the lime and scared me a bit by saying that he had never seen a lime tree so close to a house. It is on my boundary for privacy in my patio about 1 m away from my house wall. He said that they absorb all the water out of the foundations and cause damage. I told him that it was a golden lime and that we won't let it get very big. I don't want it any higher than about 3ms so will continually prune it back. I did a search on golden lime and mature heights but I can't find it on the internet. Maybe I got it wrong about the name - I know that it is definitely a lime. I am now worried that I shouldn't have planted it there. I don't know whether we have shrinkable clay - anyone any advice on this please?
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I think 1m is too close - even just in terms of the tree spread.
Working out the minimum planting disctance is a dark art and requires knowing the foundation depth, soil type, and height & water demand of the tree.
There's some guidance here - http://landscape-masonry.co.uk/pdf/layout%204-2.pdf
A bit complicated. I'll just say that if I was planting a lime that I was going to keep to 3m height (e.g. box pruned), I'd plant no closer than 4 or 5m.... if it was going to be allowed to grow up to it's full height, 10 or 12m.
Thanks WillDB. I was thinking the same. It is such a shame as it gives great screening.
I think the golden leaved lime is Tilia x europea "Wratislaviensis", try looking that up for details of mature size.
http://www.bluebellnursery.com/catalogue/trees/Tilia/T/2664
Fifty foot plus and a quick grower! A tree for a woodland setting. Not for anywhere near a house.
There's loads of more suitable shrubs for a bit of screening
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Yes, it looks like I have dropped off here…. although the trunk doesn't look like it will ever get big, the lower branches start at ground level so it has a very short stumpy trunk. I also wouldn't say it was a quick grower. It was my height when I bought it 1.7m and it's about 2.5m after 4 years. However, it is a lime and it is bothering me now so it's time is nearly up. I am a bit annoyed that small garden centres allow numpties like me to buy these trees. Don't they know we don't know what we are doing?
I wish I could but I probably can't easily get at the roots without taking up the patio slabs.
Yes, it looks like I have dropped off here…. although the trunk doesn't look like it will ever get big, the lower branches start at ground level so it has a very short stumpy trunk. I also wouldn't say it was a quick grower. It was my height when I bought it 1.7m and it's about 2.5m after 4 years. However, it is a lime and it is bothering me now so it's time is nearly up. I am a bit annoyed that small garden centres allow numpties like me to buy these trees. Don't they know we don't know what we are doing?
When I was a child our street was lined with limes. The council workmen came along every year (those were the days!) and pollarded them, so they grew into lollipop shapes and never got too large. Perhaps you could try that? It does make the winter silhouette rather strange - a sort of knobbly club - but in the spring the new shoots soon emerged and became a pretty green again.
Unfortunately pgirl, it's not in the interests of GCs to advise people against buying things - they want you to come back and spend again when something fails - like when they sell bedding plants very early... Nurseries are always better if you have one you can go to instead.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Buttercupdays, does that control the roots as I have no problem controlling the top??
PS the girth is 24 cm.