The search feature doesn't seem to be working on these forums - wasn't it kids and decks facing each other in relatively close proximity?

Have seen grasses used effectively as accents, but being wispy and/or arching I doubt their ability to provide a real dense screening unless thickly planted and allowed to become a physical barrier.

The Nov/Dec issue of Fine Gardening - not my bible, but just happened across a copy - had some grasses: Pampas (zones 7-11, 7' tall x 5' wide); Atlas Fescue (zones4-10, 3'x3' maybe); Wright's Dropseed (zones 5-9, 8-10'x6').

What about some of the hollies or the ninebarks? A change along with the river birch from all the conifer types.

Everyone likes a little nookie (cypress), but maybe not on the property line in full view. The birches are a good idea, if I do say so myself.

The ornamrntal grasses won't like the semi-shade of the birches, though. Broadleaf evergreens like rhodies, hollies, andromeda, mountain laurel, or cherry laurel would be good over the long haul. They are slower to grow up,though. If you go for them, get them bigger to begin with.

Here is a link that might be useful: original thread

Yes there were all sorts of issues we had going on here. Fortunately just the barrier itself has helped a lot, even though it is not solid.

I really like the idea of the birches and I think they will provide a nicer view than the Nookia's IMO. I have some fairly large holly's that I could put in there from my current landscape along the side of my house? They are about 7 years old and I have 8 of them. They are Blue Girl Holly I think? That way they would have a head start and be a bit bigger. They are about thigh high on me at this point(I'm five two) and have been pruned here and there over the years. If I were to let them grow they'd be really large by now. I could replace them with something else in the landscape perhaps and use those if we cannot find ones larger?

The ninebark is a great idea too. I think I have some at the end of the deck. I lopped it pretty short as it grows like a crazy thing for me. Is that what would be at the end of my deck banister in the last pic? It has purple leaves and white flowers for a short time?

Thanks for the replies. This has given me some more options to think about. Her is another picture of what is past the nookias on up a bit...

{{gwi:7246}}

And this is the bed on the other side of the house....

{{gwi:7249}}

Thanks again. It's nice to have several opinions on something like this.

I'm sorry, it's got totally nothing to to do with the issue at hand but it is bugging me. Like fingernails on a blackboard? That's Nootka cypress, aka weeping Alaska cedar (technically Xanthocyparis nootkatensis).

I like the idea of the river birches as well, but try to salvage the cedars and relocate them. These are truly stunning trees but do take many years to provide satsifactory screening. They look best when grouped in an informal cluster rather than spread out as a (future) visual screen. Is there another place for them?

Sorry gardenGal...Actually it kind of developed into that as a joke here. We had this one landscaper come out for an estimate and we said what they were and he kept calling that, so then we started too. He didn't get the job.
Of the 5 that are there two are pretty much done. It was much too wet there and the other three are fair at best. They may look nice up the way a bit to the side yard in a bed of three? I am not sure what my landscaper will do witht hem. He offered to replace all five trees with something better for the space when they began to die. It is very, very wet there. I do really like the trees a lot and how they look. We have a wide open front yard so something off centered near the line would be nice with them?

It seems like a lot of plants that will soon outgrow the area.

laag, the idea, epxressed in your above post, was one of the most liberating ideas that got through my thick skull a while back when you've expressed it before.

The nuance for gardeners is to use the right strategy for the specific purpose, and not be caught unawares--"golly, I would not have planted that had I known I would have to cut it down in 5 yrs" But otherwise, plants aren't people--they can be replaced.

Also, in an old thread I tried to ask more about the art form of intentional temporary/filler planting. So I think it can be one of the subsets of landscape design and plant selection and is either overlooked, or somehow not kosher--that is, maybe a landscaper is reluctant to admit"here's what you need here right now and just rip that puppy out in 5 yrs"---so to me, the plant category of "shrub that looks nice and can be removed in 4 years without a tractor and chain" has some appeal. Ideas like spacing vs. layered planting (e.g., remove every other arborvitae vs. remove a whole row of fast-growing stuff once the stuff behind it has grown up; whether one plant will actually inhibit the rapid growth of the desired plant and so defeat the objective. Stuff you can cut off at the ground level and leave, vs the tractor and chain thing. Option to invest in one or 2 "focal point" specimens that are large and expensive and fill in with annuals, vs. when need to use large amounts of mature specimens.

It took me a long time to realize that a lot of things never really stopped growing--it was just a matter of time--and that, it could be hard to get the true dwarfs (mostly shrubs, I'm talking about) in their fully mature size (some of these, I'm not willing to pay for). So it can be very hard to get shrubs that are in a desirable chunky 3-8 ft range, that has a great impact, that will just stay that way.

And pruning--you "can" prune anything, but of course only some things take well to pruning. So that's part of the renewable vs. replaceable landscape plan.

Also this relates to advice about whether the "large" specimen will actually grow more poorly and be at greater risk of dying, vs. will just cost more (this will usually depend on planting conditions, watering availability, willingness to invest time on it, etc, but might be species-specific.) That's for the frequent argument, "why pay $$$ for this tree when if you pay $ for this little stick, in 5 yrs you'll have the same size tree?" Well, because you might want to actually look at the bigger tree for 3 or 4 of those years, so you're willing to pay for it as long as it will not founder and die.

And learning my soil conditions was part of the equation--if I want instant impact in a dry shady area I may buy a bigger specimen because they will grow so slowly, but I have to be careful to water them to get established; whereas I learned that my sun perennials and even some shrubs just take off and reach a good size in just a year and I was willing to allow space for that.

So I am trying to use some of all of these approaches--enjoying starting things from layering or cuttings or seeds in some areas, vs. paying more $$ for a larger shrubs for entry appeal or privacy, and so on, and--gasp--I am considering putting some shrubs in my entry planting because I want them there NOW even though they may get too big 10 yrs from now..

All of this probably seems perfectly obvious, but to me is often not part of the landscape plans I'm used to. The choice of what size (age, etc) and number of plant material for WHAT reasons if you are willing to lay out all the options of time-to-reasonable-enjoyment/$$/maintenance/replacement.

Not 100% sure exactly what you mean, at first I thought I could keep these things in "check" at like 10-12 feet with pruning...HAHA...Good one eh? Alas, in talking with the person who installed these we kind of know that in an alloted amount of time every other tree where the pines are will probably have to come down and filled in with some smaller shrubs etc. We are pretty much ok with that( i just hate cutting down a tree), because we did want some privacy now. Besides where the alaskian cedars are we have a decent amount of privacy right now to give us not a solid barrier, but a decent one that allows us to not be stared at all day and evening. We also know that eventually we will outgrow our swingset and the smaller bed will be stretched out in that area and some trees added. Now, all this being said. We are going to look at our options again in 7 years to see if we want to remain in this home. Our daughter will be out of her small private school that goes only until the 8th grade and we will need to find a suitable high school either public (we are not in a school district I care for) or a private school. So we will probably move into a more acceptable public school district or nearer to a private school that we like. We are kind of playing it year to year and our home will be paid for by then and if need be we will revamp the entire beds so we are not being attacked by the evergreens. :)

Of course privacy screens create an urgency in ones perspective as to what plants to use. So does the age of the planter. It's our national heritage to be in a hurry, even if there is a stop sign dead ahead. That being said, big plants in small spaces is the single biggest blunder in the industry. Shade trees next to foundations, large evergreens in small city lots eating up what little yard there was, not to mention totally out of scale. To say a planting lasts 15 years would eliminate the glorious plantings of established neighborhoods that make them so different than the cookie cutter sub-division plantings that so annoy me. To remove and reinstall perpetuates small plants and starting over. Seeking out old city in whatever area you live in may give you hints on the design of both your house and yard and keep it from looking like McNeighborhood. Being on the recieving end of requests to "butch the hell out of my plants" to make them fit to the point of nauseum has given me the incentive to try to impart to people that when dealing with nature, patience is a virtue. There are many new hybrids that offer columnar shapes, dwarf sizes,etc., that make it much easier to plant a city garden. Someone that points out these scenarios would seem to have credibility in my estimation and not after the $$$$ from the next planting.

Diversity, Crunchpa, it is diversity. There are three ways to go and they are all good. I love good old mature plantings. I love well maintained landscapes kept fully functional for years. I love instant landscapes that allow people to enjoy their lifestyles right away and enjoy seeing them revamped and changed a few years down the road.

There is no one way. That is what is so great about this industry.

I think Frankie really made some great points about how it is more a mix of all three approaches than what is behind door number one, door number two, or door number three. Let the trees mature along with some key shrubs. Maintain the maintainable. Replace the replacable. This is a living ever changing media.

Just what plants are the big mature ones in those well established old city plantings that are not pruned or sheared into compliance? I see Azaleas, Rhododendrons, Ilex, and Taxus in those beautiful gardens in Boston and Cambridge. I also see those same plants in the most overgrown nightmare gardens in the same cities.

Those very plants are the ones that the baby boom generation is rejecting because they watched their aging parents lose a grip on maintaing those plants. I can not tell you how many people have told me "no rhododendrons or yews".

If you crawl in and under some of those plantings, you often find that there are several plants grown together and stumps of others that were choked out as the others matured. I can also remember removing lots of plants thinning out some of those maturing gardens while growing up landscaping in the Boston 'burbs.

These plantings were not three gallon plants spaced miles apart and allowed to grow into maturity. That makes for a good thesis paper, but thirty years ago I was at the dumb end of a shovel and planted some of the mature plantings that people see today and they and every other landscape that I saw going in was built for reasonable gratification from day one. Plants were thinned by attrition. That means cut out, transplanted, or died in place.

It is revisionist history in my opinion to believe that these were planted spaced for maturity.

I'm not the only baby boomer here. Who honestly remembers dinky plants spaced out to grow to fit into a mature garden thirty years ago? Chime in please.

There are two questions:

1. What are those mature plants that are grand, in scale, and not pruned into submission in these majestic urban plantings?

2. Who saw plantings installed in such a way as to not need pruning, not need thinning, and to be allowed the room to fully mature when they were much younger?

laag, that is exactly what I meant. I did not mean to replace one's landscape every 5 years. We just need more conversations on the order of, here is a good place for some instant gratification; over here is where you plant your beech tree for your, or someone's, grandchildren; here you want some quick impact but don't use that ornamental grass x because you'll never be able to wrestle it out; and so on.

The other thing is, I don't think a knowledgeable gardener has to plant his or her yard JUST so that it will be beautiful for the next buyer or so that buyer doesn't have to do anything to maintain or rejuvenate the landscape. Let the buyer beware! So I see a balance between responsibility vs. freedom. Irresponsible might be knowingly planting something in a way that it will destroy the foundation in 5 years; responsibility AND satisfaction can come from plantint a nice small oak that you may, or may not, get to enjoy as a shade tree, but you know it's the right plant for the right place, so you nurture and cherish it, and someday you or someone else will get the benefit; freedom is planting some large evergreens for a screen that you just need now, that might have to be thinned later by you OR someone else-- In between all this is acquiring more landscape and plant knowledge or advice so you are avoiding totally daft creations--for the evergreen screen, maybe researching it a bit since there are choices that are more or less painful down the road-- but not merely existing to create a legacy.( How do you like your garden? Oh, I hate it, but in 20 years someone will really like it.)This is all still compatible with planting "real" trees and things. In reality, no matter how carefully you plan, it will not necessarily fulfill that dream in 15-20 yrs anyway and certainly without knowledgeable maintenance.

Here is a funny thing about mature neighborhoods. In many of them, the trees are way too big for perfect (or even good) aesthetics with the small homes and lots--but the neighborhoods are beautiful in fall with glowing maples, oaks, gingko. If we followed a roadmap for scale, everyone would have had to plant only dogwoods and redbuds and Japanese maples. In some neighborhoods, hardly a home is sited on the lot in a way that a nice shade tree can be placed to provide both proper shade and not dwarf the house. So were those people visionaries, planting trees that in 20-30 yrs would be breathtaking, or irresponsible for not finding the perfect species that would not exceed 20 ft, or whatever?

I agree with the shrub myth, too. In my current home, I have some ginormous azaleas that I HAVE crawled under and seen, gosh, there are actually 4 shrubs here and if I could possibly rip out 2, I wouldn't have to prune so much. But I'm not sure it can be done now(well, maybe anything can be done with the right tools and risk-taking).

So one of my convoluted points is that even if one person plants the "perfectly spaced for maturity" landscape, or whatever, it will still never be care-free, and a succession of subsequent, generally plant-ignorant and/or plant-disinterested homeowners (I think that's fair; it's not meant to be holier-than-thou) will likely screw it up.
As in, beds with lots of space between plantings have to have regular attention to mulching and weeding ("look at these idiots who planted here before us--they just left us these puny shrubs in a weed farm!). So one of the myths is that humans have some kind of amoebic shared mind and will carry on the garden vision of the previous homeowner.

All that said, I LIKE being well-warned, in print or otherwise, about the characteristics of a tree or shrub or whatever, and find myself doing a lot more research before trying something (can almost get paralyzing) so that I can make an informed decision about placement, maintenance and so forth.

There is no doubt a middle ground that you gentlemen have a firm grasp of. But how many times are the real money maker plants crammed into an area with total disregard of the outcome. I initially blamed some of these faux paux on ignorance, but later took it as greed. Unsuspecting customers that are sometimes overwheled by the project of building and landscaping there new house, end up with 3 trees where 1 would suffice, and in the long run be better off. The total lack of perennials to fill gaps temporarily, so more shrubs can be used to bolster the profit margin. There are many people in the industry, that have gouged to the point of people thinking of landscapers as gypsys, and not to be trusted. Every industry has unscrupulous characters, but to see what to me is the obvious taking advantage of, leads me to second guess the motivation in some instances. No doubt ignorance plays a part when a paperbark or amur maple could have been used, or sargents crab as opposed to larger varities. To underestimate how large, how fast, some plants can grow is on par with weekend gardener. The years go by faster than you think, look at your gray hair baby boomers, most people have some attachment to the original planting. With proper spacing and the use of some of the hybrids availiable, and filling gaps with perrenials that can for instance,ornamental grasses,take up large spaces while you wait for your foundation planting to catch up. There is large stock availible, not everything has to be a 2 gallon pot. Your doubfile viburnum hedge can have gaps between while you wait for them to touch in what becomes your no maintenance hedge. Pruning will always be part of it, when it becomes hacking in short order, we have a problem. Plants that have a reasonable shot at growing to expected size in the area they are planted will not have to be butchered, just groomed. The examples are right next door to everybody.

Crunch, you are right to point out the differences between carefully considered choices based on individual goals, and actions taken just out of ignorance or on truly unscrupulous advice.

That's why I think this forum has an opportunity to keep pointing out those differences while still discussing mulitple options. And the first step is usually really trying to get deep into, what are you trying to achieve? (In several dimensions, including time). That's also why, when the time dimension expectation is out of step with living plant behavior, that alternative solutions are often offered.

Ok...ummm...SUmmie is confused...so does all this mean I made huge mistakes on my new beds? I really like them! Well except for the dead Xanthocyparis nootkatensis. (Thanks Gardengirl)

Andrew, re "everyone likes . . ."

Sometimes you are too funny - you're always inserting these little entertaining bits. I want you to know that someone appreciates them.

Maro

Summie, you are getting some privacy right now when you need it.You'll have more over the next few years. You can maintain those plantings either through work or by paying others. I'd say you are doing well.

I don't think you are afraid to make changes in the future if some things get big or tired since you don't seem to be afraid to correct what you see as a mistake with the Alaskan Cedars. I'd say you are like my daughters favorite tv star - getting the best of both worlds.

I am always curious why many people perceive that maintaining a perennial bed is easier than an annual prunng of shrubs. I'm not sure if there is a belief that perennials are more or less a set 'em and forget 'em ordeal or if it is that it is a belief that pruning shrubs is a much more difficult endeavor than it is.

I guess I have some prune-o-phobia. I got over some of it. But, some shrubs don't take well to pruning (unless maybe you think that's always just a matter of expertise, not shrub-specific), and I think people in general don't get much advice on that. Like, shrub which needs less pruning but when it does, it's easy to ruin, vs. shrub that is very forgiving, and so on.

Summiebee, it has been my observation that River Birch, when planted in wet soils tend to grow a heavy root system on the soil surface which in time makes mowing lawns difficult. The roots have no need to grow downward in seach of moisture. In time both you and your neighbors will be unhappy with the situation. Something to consider.

I'd be interested to know exactly why the Alaska cedars did not do well. They are very tolerant of wet soils (they actually require consistently and evenly moist soils) although they do appreciate decent drainage. If the drainage is so poor or the water pooling/accumulation significant, I have a hard time understanding why the companion plantings - which appear to be far less moisture tolerant species - are still thriving. Any qualified hort pros around to do a post mortem? It may make a significant difference in what you elect to plant to fill in......most ornamental grasses for example will not be happy in wet, poorly drained soils.

no advice here, just really like what you've done.