Privacy screen tree ideas & progress
I bought a house last year, and earlier this spring it was my goal to add a few trees for privacy. My most important task was creating a privacy screen (in time) on the south side of my house to block out some loud neighbors.
I had two 10' Black Hills Spruce and a 6' Celestial Shadow Dogwood planted on the south side of the house. On the north I had one Black Hills Spruce and a clump of whitespire birch. All of this cost me about $1800, and that maxed my budget out at the time. It is a good start, but I would like to add more next spring. Hopefully not spending another $1800. I need some ideas!
On the south side, I planted about 20' away from the house and spaced the trees about 15' apart, knowing it will take several years to fill in. But I am getting impatient, and thinking about adding something right next to the patio. Some 8' emerald green arborvitae might do the trick. I REALLY want to block out that neighbor.
On the north side, a solid screen isn't that important to me. Those neighbors are not annoying, I just would like to block the street a bit.
At the back of the property line, I would like to add something that just looks natural, to fill in the wooded area a bit. Evergreens are preferable, as in the winter there is barely any cover and I can see the people behind me. These will get very little light, I want to plant them as far back as I can, under the canopy.
ALL IDEAS WELCOME!
Comments (11)
Embothrium
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoAlexander SE Michigan - Zone 5b
5 years agoRelated Discussions
100' Privacy Screen of trees
Comments (34)I'm with Mad_gallica and Kentrees that you should move the gate so it isn't centered on what you don't want to look at. My mixed shrub border had slightly different goals than yours, but the general idea was the same - a way to block an unattractive view. My area had a height limit of 20' or so since we have solar panels behind this, so my particular plants might not work for your use, but having a green wall of only one or two species in such an informal rural setting looks really artificial to my eye, so you might want to consider spacing the trees you have out to closer to their ultimate width, and filling in rows (staggered front to back - see photo 2) with different evergreen species/selections and denser deciduous trees & shrubs so it looks less formal. As someone suggested above, you can do groups or clumps of plants with different heights and species. (Add some bamboo screening - comes in rolls - on and above the fence for now to block between the trees until things fill in a bit.) I used three staggered rows of plants with repetition of several types of evergreens down the length. The bed is about 15' deep and 60' long give or take 10'. Looking NE from the SW side (June 2010 - planted October 2009) In December of 2010 after one full growing season looking west from the dirt pile just visible on the right (east) edg e of the photo above After 4 growing seasons with some added perennials but not much in the way of added shrubs it is fairly full. Late October 2013 Looking down the back side as fall color is just beginning to develop - no perennials since this is the work area side. Here's a photo in taken late November 2014 that was from a similar angle to the second photo at the top. Remember that vehicle traffic on a drive needs less height to block it from view, while you will want more height where the barn is. So perhaps center one spruce on the barn from your most frequent viewing spot and place the other to block the barn from the next-most viewed spot. Randomly space the arborvitaes along the remainder of the length, with some clumped or staggered front to back, again thinking of their ultimate size and your viewing spots. Then get some large shrubs/small trees to add in to hide the view of the drive, considering how densely branched they will be, whether there are flowers or colored foliage or interesting winter features. So something like one of the really large rhododendrons like Roseum elegans might work to block views of the drive (evergreen, flowers, and dense) while you could put a lilac (densely twiggy in winter, spring flowers) slightly offset from one of the evergreens and in a different plane, either set closer to the fence or farther from the fence than the evergreens....See MoreIdeas fro Evergreen privacy screen with some trees
Comments (16)The Techny Arborvitae could be planted in a row as a screen or standalone as a specimen. Mine are planted kind of intermediate to this. I have them on one of my property borders amongst other plantings (I did plant 2 next to each other). Ive got emerald green arborvitae and green giants and this can be thought of as intermediate solution to screen(more than EG, less that GG, also dense foliage like EG). Foliage is dense, a darker green, and elegant if I must say so myself. Love the (3d) look of the foliage and I get two tones of color as well. The color is real nice. Though I havent, if I could do it again, I would plant one as a specimen tree in a second. Depending on how much space you have/what other selections you have in mind other selections may be more appropriate(in regards to planting it as a specimen tree, lets face it there are other more beautiful conifers, though this is beautiful as well). Just thought Id throw it out there since they dont get mentioned much on here and Im quite happy with mine....See Morenumber and types of trees in a short privacy screen
Comments (9)Just outside Boston. Most of the area is zone 6, but close to the water is 7a. I’ve found that to be accurate. It was silly of me not to mention the sight line issue, thank you. I have located the spot not to plant beyond by driving up to that intersection a dozen times or so in low and high cars to determine it. So long as I don’t prune the linden tree’s branches back or plant under them the sight line is preserved. What appears to be a mulch mound is solid with sucker growth that I cut back constantly, in part because of the sight line issue. I’d loooove to get rid of the mound effect but I fear damaging the tree roots. Happy to take advice with that because it is so ugly. There had been a birch that blocked much of that view, but when it died we replaced it with the paperbark maple. It was a rookie mistake. It’s beautiful but the area needs more....See Moreideas for additional privacy screening
Comments (8)I sincerely appreciate all feedback. I am a landscaping novice as evidenced by my lack of giving all relevant information. We are in zone 8a, south Atlantic region. We can use our pool 6 months a year with some mild heater use, and really anytime of the year with a day's worth of heating for the winter months. We have a shallow lot with some backyard space on either side of the pool, but I won't lie - I would choose differently if I had to do it over again (move from out of state from completely different region of US with limited options, but I digress...). I have attached 2 photos, one of the current state with tree form indian hawthorns. About 3 years old. Should get to 12-14' per my understanding. We've been letting them fill in, but we need to get more aggressive with training them into tree form I think. The canna lillies in the pots need to be cut out for fall, but they also fill in height pretty nicely over summer. The 2nd photo is one where I added in my idea of taylor junipers. From what I find they get to about 3' in diameter and up to 20' tall. Very valid concern with the area between the 2 brick walls getting too hot. In all honesty, we'd need about 40 taylor junipers (to cover 120') which means we'd have to buy them pretty small and wait years for them to get to the height of the photo, which is probably something we won't invest in. The back yard neighbors without the fence have some other type of evergreens, but with a big gap because the builder planted them around a huge walnut tree that has since been cut down. Does anyone have any other ideas? Maybe this is just something we need to grin and bear....See MoreAlexander SE Michigan - Zone 5b
5 years agolast modified: 5 years ago
hoovb zone 9 sunset 23
5 years agoEmbothrium
5 years agoAlexander SE Michigan - Zone 5b
5 years agoEmbothrium
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
5 years ago
gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoAlexander SE Michigan - Zone 5b
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoSo here is my current plan:
Add 2 of these privacy screen panels to the side of the patio, I can't bolt them into the pavers and I don't want to dig any posts, so I am going to flank them on the bottom with large metal planter boxes. They only cover about 7' wide total, but they are 6.5' tall and that should give immediate relief at least while sitting on the patio.
But I still want to plant a few arborvitae that will in time provide a full screen. Here is a reminder of where they will be going.
So here is the big question: should I plant about 3 techny arbovitae, 4 American arborvitae, or several emerald green?
Less planting is appealing to me, but will the techny arborvitae be too much for that small space? Those two Black Hills spruce are about 15-20' away from the patio. Techny get about 8-10' wide, so they should get tight in the future. I really don't feel like planting 8+ emeralds, though. I am already planning to plant 8 other trees throughout the yard this spring.
As an aside, any opinion on the esthetics of those privacy screens I posted above? Anybody think it's going to look stupid and ugly? The cost for two screens is $600, plus another $400+ for metal planters, so it's not going to be cheap. I prefer the look of trees as opposed to fences or screens, but I really need an instant fix.
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5