Pennsylvania - evergreen privacy screen

8 years ago

last modified: 8 years ago

Hello,
Within the next 2 years, the next phase of houses will be built behind me in our development. I'm looking for some advice on a privacy screen (wind break would also be nice) in my back yard. A few that i've been considering are blue spruce, norway spruce, fat albert blue spruce, or green giant arborvitae, nellie stevens holly.

I understand I basically want the impossible, a tree that'll grow fast and max out at 20 feet or so. I was also considering spacing out the evergreens, then fill in the spaces between or offset with basically any deciduous tree instead of a full wind break/privacy screen.

The houses in the new plan will be a little lower in elevation...i'm hoping to block out the majority of their home, but still keep my view.

Any plant would need to be as deer resistant as possible. Deer at my emerald green arb's, so I'm worried about the same thing happen with the green giants. I've heard they're less likely to eat these, but i think i'd be very nervous every winter for the next 15 years. Correct me if you think i'd be okay.
The future size of blue/norway spruce is obviously something to think about. I was considering keeping these on the left side of the yard, or maybe in a row on the property line, as they're futher from any houses if they reach 50 feet in 50 years.

Here at 2 pictures, the one is an overview/property line map, other is me standing on the deck.
http://s8.postimg.org/6orlgzswl/yard2.jpg
http://s29.postimg.org/57x8w0n93/property2.jpg
There will be a lot of homes directly behind me, but not the entire valley, and there should be about 75 feet from the back of my property to the back of their house. Towards the right side, there's a drop off, about 30 feet, then about 15 feet at the bottom of this hill. Not sure whether to plant on the top ridge of this hill, or plant on the 2nd flat part at the bottom. Worried it'd just take forever for an evergreen to get this tall. I'll probably mulch/plant some shrubs on this hill. On the left side of the property, basically to the left of the hose in the picture, this is all a slight grade, but i have grass there now and i cut with a push mower. I can do anything here, as it's not too steep of a drop-off, the entire yard just gets steeper towards the right. The left corner point is actually on the flat part of my yard.

Some facts on my location:
- Located in zone 6b (Pittsburgh) with very windy winters
- picture is facing the west
- I've done the rest of my landscaping and i plan on installing the back on my own as well.
- Soil type - clay, but not too much
- I like more of a formal landscape
- full sun

I plan on being here forever so i want to be sure i'm happy with the decision.
Thanks for your help!

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Comment (1)

lkplatow
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Hi - you had posted on my other thread and I thought I would follow up here. We planted a privacy screen along our entire property line back in summer 2009. We are outside of Philadelphia, technically zone 6, but we are on top of a hill and very exposed to wind, so I tend to think of myself as zone 5 when selecting plants. Like you, I wanted to block a house that was built on the hillside behind us without blocking our views of the mountains or horizon.

We ended up keeping 1 existing autumn olive shrub that happened to be growing wild near the property line and planting thuja green giant arborvitae in the center (where we needed to block the very tall house that was built behind us), nellie stevens hollies next to that to keep the entire center area where the house is screened with something evergreen, then forsythia and sea green junipers along the far edges of the property line.

I have been overall quite happy with it -- the deer do not seem to eat any of it (and they eat EVERYTHING around here, so that is saying something!). The Thujas seem resistant to snow and cold and have grown tall very quickly but I expect they'll top out soon and stay low enough to not block the horizon. The Nellie Stevens hollies have also filled out nicely and should top out at or lower than roofline height of the house. They do end up looking quite ragged by the end of the winter (especially these past two winters, which were especially cold and brutally windy) but they come back nicely in the spring. And the forsythia are amazing looking when they are in bloom -- we planted them very close together so they are a pretty solid screen when leafed out and even when bare, it is hard to see through them.

So this is what we were dealing with and what it looked like when we first planted it: First planted

And here are some pics of what it looks like now:

You can see that the green giants have just about reached rooftop height on the house and have perfectly blocked the views from my second floor windows to theirs (the last picture). The nellie stevens are in front of the house in the first picture and the sea green junipers are to the right of it. The forsythias are to the left of the house in the 2nd picture. And that silly wild autumn olive bush has grown to ridiculous size -- it has actually swamped the green giants we planted in back of it. I need to do some major pruning!

Good luck!
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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
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Pennsylvania - evergreen privacy screen

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lkplatow

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