When I came across these posts, I could not help myself but to reply and CORRECT the record. For anyone who thinks these are great trees to have around your home, perhaps you'd like to pitch in to pay for my $4700 bill to take 4 of these MONSTERS down! Part of the reason I purchased my home is because I thought it looked beautiful with these trees in the yard. Well after 4 years living here and the PROBLEMS they give me, I just forked over the nearly $5000 to get rid of half of them. The other half will be done in 2 years when I recover from this expenditure.
Baloney they dont do damage......they do PLENTY! These trees are between 10 - 15 feet away from the home. Those roots are like caterpiller tractors. They may not damage the foundation itself but they travel around the foundation and lift everything in their path.....A/C slab, patio slab, even my driveway concrete slap and 1000 pound steel security gate, lifting it 6 inches out of the ground despite being encased in concrete. In addition they have cracked my PVC sewer line just under the home on one side and I had to dig it up and replace it.
"Just trim them" you say? Seriously? Have you ever tried that? They produce all sorts of roots, shooting off the knees and going every which way. Last summer I dug a hole for a small 6' fish pond, 3 foot deep and it took me 2 days because of all the arm sized roots running every which way. I had to use a reciprocating saw to cut my way through them.
As for the knees, my neighbor is always complaining, they travel into her yard and she told me 3 years ago it cost her a $1000 to cut down all the knees, and she had to because the lawn cutting people said they couldnt cut the grass any more because of them. They make a terrible mess of the lawn. Finally my case for NEVER planing these is to the ongoing cleanup. As my brother calls them "weak" trees, every storm, even small ones leaves branches and leaves all over the place....its a continual mess, especially in the fall where it covers my roof where I have to go up and sweep the mounds from the valleys and then discard huge heaps. Recently I switched insurance companies and when they inspected I was told that I had to remove the organic material from my roof before they could write the policy. OK but the trees are continually shedding. Not to mention the HUGE limbs that come crashing down in larger storms. So much so that I am always cautious walking under them when I go out in the morning when there is a storm. They are also lightning magnets, one was destroyed by lightning and cost me 400$ to remove it afterwards. Another was hit and a large limb came off breaking my fence. During a hurricane here, a 20 foot top of the tree came off and planted itself in my neighbors roof! Since then my wife has been fearful of these trees and the drum beat began to get rid of them.
You bet I hate these trees now with every fiber in my body. I put in a pool this year, and after 3 months I finally realized that there is NO WAY I can enjoy this pool without TONS of maintenance. Even when covered with a pool cover, the wind blows in the "leaves" where it then enters the water and the tiny needles come off creating a very nice soup in the pool which takes a tremendous effort to clean. Even though the trees are at least 30 - 40 feet from the pool, there is no preventing this because the trees are at least 40 - 60 feet high and they simply blow a good distance. These trees were planted by the builder approximately 30 years ago....so I wouldnt exactly call them slow growing.
I've done a lot of exterior work, so I am protecting my investment by cutting these down and replacing them with smaller less maintenance trees.
My opinion, unless you live in the country and keep them FAR away from the home, DONT PLANT THESE.
