Hello everyone,
Our garden has been landscaped by the landscaper, and all the slopes have been filled in. Now we have a brown, dusty desert.
We do get a fair amount of rain during “normal” summers here, but we have built on sandy soil. The rainwater drains quickly, and summers tend to be rather dry. Basically, the situation here is similar to the area cleared for Tesla in Grünheide. Therefore, we want to focus on a more Mediterranean-style planting and ideally avoid irrigation.
On the south side of our brick house, I would like to plant a fig tree, which I want to benefit from the heat stored by the façade in the evenings. After doing some research, I thought that a planting distance of about 1 meter (3 feet) for the fig tree might be okay. Closer would be better for heat utilization. Shade is also an important factor given the increasingly hot summers.
My main question is about the roots and what they might do to the exterior basement insulation. The basement is built with a waterproof concrete wall, so roots shouldn’t penetrate it, and the house would never leak because of roots.
Should I be worried about the insulation when planting a fig tree at this distance, or is 1 meter (3 feet) sufficient?
If you walk around in France, or regions like the Pfalz, for example, you see fig trees growing from all sorts of cracks and corners. Their houses are still standing.
Should I just go ahead, or take precautions?
Attached again are pictures of the shell construction and the site after landscaping. The distance from the light well is also 1 meter (3 feet), just like the distance from the exterior wall.
Our garden has been landscaped by the landscaper, and all the slopes have been filled in. Now we have a brown, dusty desert.
We do get a fair amount of rain during “normal” summers here, but we have built on sandy soil. The rainwater drains quickly, and summers tend to be rather dry. Basically, the situation here is similar to the area cleared for Tesla in Grünheide. Therefore, we want to focus on a more Mediterranean-style planting and ideally avoid irrigation.
On the south side of our brick house, I would like to plant a fig tree, which I want to benefit from the heat stored by the façade in the evenings. After doing some research, I thought that a planting distance of about 1 meter (3 feet) for the fig tree might be okay. Closer would be better for heat utilization. Shade is also an important factor given the increasingly hot summers.
My main question is about the roots and what they might do to the exterior basement insulation. The basement is built with a waterproof concrete wall, so roots shouldn’t penetrate it, and the house would never leak because of roots.
Should I be worried about the insulation when planting a fig tree at this distance, or is 1 meter (3 feet) sufficient?
If you walk around in France, or regions like the Pfalz, for example, you see fig trees growing from all sorts of cracks and corners. Their houses are still standing.
Should I just go ahead, or take precautions?
Attached again are pictures of the shell construction and the site after landscaping. The distance from the light well is also 1 meter (3 feet), just like the distance from the exterior wall.
A
Axolotl-neu15 Jul 2022 11:45OWLer schrieb:
Do I need to worry about insulation for a fig tree here, or is 1m (3 feet) enough?You can try searching for "roots + fig tree." You will find that fig trees have a) shallow roots to stabilize the trunk and b) a taproot growing downwards. In summary: No worries.
You could at most add a root barrier as a precaution against superficial roots in between. The previous owner of our plot insulated the shaft of their cistern with EPS and XPS. The EPS was intact, but the XPS was partially penetrated by roots. I wouldn’t be too concerned about the house itself.
A
Axolotl-neu15 Jul 2022 12:06K a t j a schrieb:
I never plant trees or larger shrubs closer than 10m (33 feet) to the house.However, a fig tree only grows as a shrub or small tree and does not exceed 4m (13 feet) in height (of course, it can also be pruned to stay smaller). So that’s not really an issue.But that would mean that most gardens wouldn’t be allowed to have any trees if you base it on your distances 😉. Even in my 1,100m² (11,840 sq ft) garden, I would then only have one spot suitable for a tree.
K a t j a schrieb:
I generally never plant trees or large shrubs closer than 10m (33 feet) to the house. If it's not the roots, then it's the leaves in the gutter or shading in front of the window, dryness under the tree canopy, or something else. We don’t have gutters on this side because of the ridge orientation. Shading of the facade is actually desired, and with the small 4m (13 feet) green strip on sandy soil, it’s going to be dry underneath anyway. 🙂
I’ll just go ahead and plant it next spring.
My dream is for it to grow about 4-5m (13–16 feet) tall so that it partially shades the kids’ room in summer. Then I won’t have to close the roller shutters completely during the day.
I’m not too worried about the size of fig trees in OWL.
The drainage pipe for the east roof runs at about 2.5m (8 feet) deep. I’ll need to monitor that in the coming decades. But I’m hoping the roots won’t damage the green sewer pipes.
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