I want a horse chestnut tree in my front garden, bad idea?

[sweetkitty]

Well DD2 does, I quite fancy the idea of a large tree in the front garden, garden in all lawn, open plan (new build house), garden is 10m long at least and about as wide, was thinking of a tree in the middle so about 5-6m from house but you hear all these stories of trees wrecking foundations etc but when I look around people's gardens they have huge trees closer.

So could I plant a horse chestnut in the middle or possibly the end then buy some shrubs to make it more interesting as the great expanse of grass annoys me.

Oh were on heavy clay soil with v poor drainage.

They are huge trees, and hugely messy. Don't do it!

If planting trees I think its nice to plant flowering and fruiting trees. Like cherry and medlar and pear and apple and plum and cornus and rowan and himalayan silver birch and magnolia and japanese acer. If you live in a warm area you could even plant exotic trees like sandalwood and deodar and tulip trees just for fun.
Then there are the smaller flowering trees. Like lilac and ceanothus and gulmohar and oleander and smoky bus and garrya elliptica and viburnum and rhodedendron and so forth.
A horse chestnut might take ages to grow. The pink flowering ones are nicer.

Not a great idea.

We have an ornamental pear which might be more suitable - pyrus something chanticleer. Lovely blossom in Spring, great shape, not too big, nice autumn colour too. A very pretty tree.

They take a lot of water so that will deprive the rest of your garden from water so you'll have to keep your eye out and do plentiful watering. Also very big trees.

Also need to ensure its healthy. Our lilac tree came down in a storm - only a small tree but made a bloody mess and damaged the house.

And I would go for magnolia - love them and their scent.

We have a horse chestnut which is absolutely beautiful at the bottom of our garden.

But it is also about 20m high and 10m diameter. So you may find planting it 5m from your house, that it is soon much closer. They have big roots which will spread a fair way, and House insurance often ask about any trees less than 10m from house due to risk of damage. Also the squirrels plant conkers all over the place, so we get tiny trees we have to pull up.

In summary I wouldn't. How about a little nut tree instead? A hazel?

Apple tree? Need one that fertilisers itself, you can buy them with info on how big they grow so you can be sure how large they will get and how big the roots might grow.

Pretty blossom in spring, organic apples in autumn. Bees love them.

Horse chestnut are massive and slow to grow.

too big for the size of your garden. plus it will make you buildings insurance really expensive.
many fruiting trees nowadays come with small roots.

Funny person up thread pretty much gives the best suggestions for alternatives, esp her flowering or interesting shrubs...there's lots you can do to improve a boring expanse of grass. How lovely to have a blank canvas!

Only at the very very.far end of your garden. And plant masses of garlic with it to ward off the new horse chestnut disease. And be prepared to live there.for 40 yearsn

You would be stark raving bonkers to plant a horse chestnut that close to your house and your neighbours would be very angry too. Do not do it. There are small cherry trees, upright cherry tress and other shrubs which would be unthreatening and beautiful. Nothing grows under large trees and it will be deeply unattractive.

Ok advice taken on board. We live in Scotland so very wet with waterlogged heavy clay soil. I've planted a few cherry trees in the back garden.

What about a conifer I like trees that are still green in winter as well? I've measured it and it's about 7m from the house but still not enough. DS2s idea she mad about conkers and trees in general

how about ceanothus? ever green, not too big, lovely blue flowers in may.

We have a horse chestnut tree in our back garden, planted by DS from a conker a couple of months after he started school.
When we planted it, it seemed a very long way from the house (it's about 50ft away). Over the years, of course, it has grown and we now need to have it lopped every 3 years or so. If we could replant it I would move it furtheraw from the house, as I can see that eventually it will overshadow the whole garden and if we're still here by then we'll probably have to cut it down.
I hadn't thought through how big it would become. TBH, I hadn't anticipated that we would still be here 30 years later!

Definitely not a conifer, unless I'm getting mixed up...aren't they the ones that are quite ugly and just grow straight up for miles? Not even nice to look at imho.

In defence of horse chesnut trees, ours is at the end of our front garden and is stunning. When you drive into our road, it's the first thing you see, and it always warms my heart.

Agree that they grow to be absolutely huge, and agree about neighbours - our neighbours opposite said "I hope you'll be cutting that bloody tree down!" when we moved in.

It's not true, though, that nothing can grow under it.

I think they are really majestic, the motion when there is even the slightest breeze is beautiful, they are unique - have never seen other types of tree move in the same way.

Having said all that, they shed sticky buds all over the place once a year, that stick to your shoes and end up all over the house (this could be avoided if you have the sort of house where people take off their shoes, and DCs don't play out in their socks!)

If we ever moved, I would miss the tree as much as the house, but I'm not sure I'd plant one if I moved, iyswim, unless I had an absolutely huge garden.

Your description of your DD reminds me of me when I was little. When I was a child, we had a cooking apple tree in our garden which was the best tree ever for climbing and sitting in. My parents cut it down to grow bedding plants under it ..anyway, I'd consider that type of tree for a girl who loves trees!

Thanks for all your help I'll have a look at your recommendations our front garden it's just so boring it's a large rectangle of grass with a semi circle at the bottom of it far too large for the house and I want to plant some lovely things in it.

Think about a larch, deciduous conifer, a silver birch, beautiful, or a rowan, lovely blossom, bright red fruit, from which you can make jelly. And, for dcs, witches hate them.
Climbing, yes a bramley. And nice fruit. Crab apple v pretty but not climbable. But you can make chutney with the crabs.

Misfitless I have an oak tree like that.

I have a sweet chestnut tree that was here when we came and is really too near to the house. It gets pruned annually to keep it a decent size . At the moment directly under it is a Ballerina rose plus Arthur Bell rose which are both flowering and margarites. I'd never plant one myself though and do worry about proximity to the house.

An oak tree, I'm .

Now they really are special.

How about a monkey puzzle? Children love monkey puzzles.

We have 4 horse chestnuts but they are about 100m from the house in a small grove. They (& the sycamores) are terrible for seedlings, I'm always removing them. We've got them in heavy clay and they are ok.
However the conifers make the ground resemble concrete, they suck all moisture out of the ground and very little grows beneath them.
We have 3 conifers that were planted at the edge of a small lawned area close to the house (about 30m away) we think about 30yrs ago - they are now well over 100ft tall and are far too large for their location.
They are handsome trees but we have just applied to remove one of them (conservation area) as it's causing problems with our outbuildings.
We have a lot of trees on our property but we also have a lot of space so the vast majority are away from the house.
We have had several small trees come down this year partially because the previous owners didn't look after them. The fact that they were away from the house meant that the damage was minimal although my car did have a near miss (tree landed on it but it was ok)

I think horse chestnut trees are beautiful, but probably best for parks and estate houses with long driveways and lots of grounds.