mixed evergreen screen recommendations please!
vvesper
14 years ago
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
14 years agoRelated Discussions
fast-growing partially shaded evergreen screen recommendations?
Comments (12)Thank you for these many kind thoughts. I do love the Chamaecypari nootkatensis pendula -- we put one in the front of our house -- but thought the cost of a bunch of these would be prohibitive. On the other hand, no solution will be inexpensive and at least the one we put in under similar conditions seems happy. The one hemlock I have planted has been attacked by the adelgid already, despite dormant oil sprays. Has anyone had experience with the adelgid-eating beetle, and doesn't that seem like a risky intervention? Easy to imagine bamboo escaping my control and then we'll be living on something like the set of Apocalypse Now. American holly is great, but have already had some leaf miner adventures with our two. Granted that was dealt with pretty easily. Some Thuja nigra in the front are doing well, in full sun. A mix of the trees you all have mentioned would be best, but have trouble visualizing a good "rhythm" of alternating species -- threes and fives? Some pointy, some pendula? Some colors especially successful when juxtaposed? If a particularly nice combination comes to mind that you have seen, please mention it. Grateful for your good thoughts and suggestions. Lynn...See MoreLooking for Recommendations for evergreen screen
Comments (5)Yikes! Pyracantha comes to mind. It's evergreen, it grows fast, it has pretty red berries, & it's got the longest, meanest thorns I ever saw. Depending on how much ground area there is (are we talking a 6' wide bed or a 12' wide bed, etc), he might also try some rampant roses. Mermaid is evergreen, beautiful, grows like a maniac (it's called a "house eater"), has huge, gorgeous, fragrant, sulphur-yellow roses, & thorns like vicious fishhooks. If he feels that armaments aren't needed, some other fast-growing roses are: Lady Banks once-blooming, these things grow like crazy, & they'll likely be evergreen in your area. The buttercream yellow one has some thorns, but the white one, which is fragrant, is thornless. There's an apartment complex near me that has a very long yellow Lady Banks hedge; it's beautiful in the spring, & they trim it only once a year just after the flowers fade. (If you trim it after it starts to grow, you'll cut off next year's flowers.) Rosette de Lizy; the books all say it grows to about 4'. Mine hit approximately 12', & it's evergreen. Seafoam. A thorny, evergreen plant with small, adorable white roses, it's advertised as a groundcover in the books, but, again, mine hit about 6' tall, & Seafoam spreads nicely. I wish you & your friend the very best....See MoreBest solution for evergreen screening - fast
Comments (15)Both Viburnum and arborvitae aka Thuja are a range of species and cultivars that have wildly diverse growth patterns. You have to know the species for sure and the cultivar if that is being considered. It is like looking photos of dogs; are you talking toy poodle or Great Dane? So something like Thuja Green Giant can get to be as much as 60’ tall and more than 15’ wide and add several feet of growth a year where it is happy, not a plant that is likely to fit in your space. Likewise, hybrid willows are both too large and are also too weak wooded to plant in this space in a hurricane zone. In contrast, I have a Thuja cultivar that isn’t supposed to exceed 4’ over time. IME many cultivars and species of privet are invasive, so research those before you buy and avoid invasives which have the potential to seed not only into your garden, but also into all the neighbors’ gardens and more problematically, into wild areas via bird droppings. So you want to do some research. Visit good quality garden centers. Visit botanic gardens as Embo suggested. Ask about hurricane tolerance and tolerance for pruning and growth rate. Make sure the websites you visit have reliable info for your area. For instance, what may grow only to 10’ in one area may get much larger elsewhere, so looking at a website from a New York State nursery or a national wholesale producer like Monrovia may be unreliable for you. Also, many nursery websites will tell you plant size at 5 years, so those 10’ plants will have the potential to get far larger given more time to grow. Look up the potential invasiveness by putting the plant’s scientific name + Florida + invasive in a search engine to get input. Were you farther north, Emerald Green arborvitae aka Thuja ‘Smaragd’ would be ideal, reaching about 14’ and only 3’-4’ wide but I think they wouldn’t be happy in Florida. So you want some expert advice from local sources in order to choose something that will work for your setting. Do investigate as to whether you can add periodic taller trellis panels for vines to the fence. Then you can intersperse those with other tall plants. Since you live in an area with an HOA see if they can encourage the neighbor to take better care of the yard if they won’t let you increase the fence height. And consider whether you really need 20’ of screening over the whole fenceline. Would a medium height, narrow tree planted in front of upstairs windows on that side suffice and then you can be content with 10’ elsewhere along that boundary?...See MoreNarrow evergreen for privacy screen
Comments (24)I know we don't have dimensions yet, but I put this list together, just to give you a variety of options. The list below includes a few that might get wider than you want, but maybe worth a look: Colorado Blue spruce, Picea pungens: http://www.thetreefarm.com/spruce-columnar-blue http://www.thetreefarm.com/spruce-blue-mountain Weeping white spruce, Picea glauca pendula: http://www.thetreefarm.com/spruce-weeping-white Norway spruce, Picea abies 'Cupressina': http://www.thetreefarm.com/spruce-norway-columnar Pine: http://www.thetreefarm.com/pine-arnold-s-sentinel http://www.thetreefarm.com/pine-bosnian-columnar http://www.thetreefarm.com/pine-swiss-stone-blue-mound http://www.thetreefarm.com/pine-mugho-tannenbaum A few wildcards, just for fun. These are wayward growers, they won't grow straight up, part of their charm, but maybe not the look you're going for: http://www.thetreefarm.com/spruce-the-blues-weeping-colorado The serbian linked below probably wouldn't like full sun, but how cool! http://www.thetreefarm.com/spruce-serbian-weeping On spacing, take the mature width, near the bottom of each page from the links and divide by 2. If a plant reaches a mature width of 10 feet, divide by 2 and plant at least 5 feet apart. I might add a foot to that so you can water, weed and mulch around the trees. Don't plant right on the property line or right up against a fence or corner. For example, if the tree you like is 10 feet wide at maturity, plant it 8 to 10 feet back from a fence or corner, so you can get around it to do maintenance. A few other random thoughts. The pandemic has created some price gouging, on all fronts. Prices seem higher to me than last year. You'll have to shop around to see who has what, in sizes you can afford and can physically plant yourself unless you plan to have the nursery do it. Having the nursery plant seems wildly expensive, but you'd likely get a 100% warranty on the tree for a year. If you plant yourself, you'll probably get a 50% warranty for the first year. I don't think there is any substitute for going to the nursery and seeing the trees in person. I would also look and ask for fresh stock. Conifers can take a long time to show damage. Last year's stock went through that 70 degree temp swing and may look fine now, but might not in 6 months. Conifers are best planted in spring here. It might be worth waiting until next year to get fresh, healthy stock. I've also seen a trend of nurseries not up-potting when they should and trees really need to have their roots spread out at planting. We're getting to the end of prime planting time for conifers. That doesn't mean you can't still plant, but just be aware that planting in the 90 degree temps coming next week is less than optimal. Another consideration is shading the trees a bit at planting. A tree fresh in from the pacific northwest is likely to burn here, so you may have to erect a shade structure till they get acclimated, just like any other plant. The Tree Farm is a great place to see multiple specimens of a tree you're interested in, some have slightly different habits that you can't see from a website. O'Toole's generally has good, reasonably priced trees, but maybe only 1 or 2 of each. Barb...See Morevvesper
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