Here are photos of my house. Prior owners had planted Indian Hawthorne and other shrubs much too close to the house and way too
thickly. Here is the house after clearing away all that foundation planting, taken last spring with lots of woods hyacinths blooming:
Here is what it looks like today after I finished planting 4 arborvitae and 5 yews, moved a few azaleas:
Here are a few of the roots of those former plantings:
Big improvement!