The evil that is the Conifer (shock horror) - roots?

[The Riviera Kid]

Hi folks,

I've read for years that Conifers are the most evil tree in existence, able to cause neighbours to have fisticuffs in the street, tear down huge buildings with their evil strangling roots etc lol.

All I see myself is a pretty tree, that if kept under control can quickly add a bit of green to any garden. Maybe I'm naive to the evil lol.

Onto my point, our little Conifer, planted in rememberance of a relative who loved to garden (we're useless at gardening ourselves, so it seemed a good choice), is around 7ft tall, and I trim it occasionally to keep it at around that height. It's away from the neighbours boundary, so doesn't cause any problems there.

I hear that the roots can be an issue. It's currently about 2-3 metres from the main structure of the house, and about 1-2 metres from the porch area.

If it's trimmed to keep it at it's current size, how much of an issue are the roots, or do they continue to grow no matter how under control the rest of the tree is?

I'm debating whether to attempt to take cuttings (I'm snorting here, I'm no gardener lol), and thus replant a smaller tree at some point, doing away with the big one, or whether trimming regularly will keep everything under control.

Cheers in advance.

 

[Deluks]

Keep it under control and you won't have any problems.
By cutting the 'tips' off you are killing communication between branch and root. The tree then does not 'tell itself' that it needs to increase root size or seek out more water/nutrients to feed the new growth (because there won't be any because you are cutting it off)

 

[theoldun]

Duke, Very good information in that last post. Pleased I read it.
For some time now my wife has been insisting on cutting my nails every week.
Have sussed her out now, she is killing communication between my brain and my root, consequently I am not getting any new growth.
See yer. old un.

 

[Nefertari]

It also depends on the type of soil you have. If you are on chalk then the roots tend to grow downwards to the water/nutrients. On clay the roots will travel bloomin metres and metres horizontally looking for water.

I've just moved from a chalk area to clay. My neighbour has dirty great cracks in her walls created by her neighbour the other side having a cedar tree in his garden. I was digging in my front garden yesterday and found massive roots from a tiny ornamental tree. I've cut them back now, but you do have to be careful on clay.

 

[Deluks]

Even so, they don't go down very deep at all, the soil is usually too compacted and rainwater is always plentiful near the ground surface.

Scroll down and check out the first two pics:

http://www.sustland.umn.edu/implement/planting.html