Sally, Well, the Eastern Red Cedars are fast growing at our house. I'm in an area of mixed grasslands/post oak-hickory forests and the Eastern Red Cedars grow like mad here, even in poor, dense, red clay soil and periods of frequent summer drought. They are so invasive here that we spend an inordinate amount of time removing them because they pop up everywhere and grow like mad. One day they're small and you're thinking "I need to cut down that sucker" and the next thing you know, it is 3', 4' or 5' tall and you're wondering how that happened! Because of our frequent grassfires/wildfires here, we have cut down and removed every cedar tree on our property that is within 100 yards of the house. When they burn, they can explode and send burning sap/resin flying from the air and that burning sap stuff ignites new fires wherever it lands. In your part of OK, there is not a serious, ongoing grassfire or wildfire issue like we have here in southcentral OK many years so cedars wouldn't be as big of a fire threat there as they are here. You probably noticed I didn't mention red-tippped photinias which, as I'm sure you know, are very overused in north central Texas and also plagued by disease. I don't see many of them here in our very rural part of OK, but they might be a possibility for your new place too if you like them. We had them in Fort Worth in the 1980s and they grew like mad, giving us a nice privacy hedge in about 7 years from small one-gallon plants. However, in northeastern OK, there generally is a lot of humidity most years so the fungal diseases that plague photinias in Texas might be a problem for them in NE OK. I have seen a few old Chinese Photinias here and they are beautiful and healthy although not always easy to find in stores. I generally recommend mixed hedges too, and still would stick more with hollies than with cedars if I were putting in a screening hedge and didn't mind waiting a couple years longer for the shrubs to get nice and big. My hollies, which are Burford hollies, are more slow-growing than cedars. I think it has taken them about 8 or 9 years to reach about 12-15' in height, but that is in dense, Red River-type clay soil. In better soil, they might be more fast-growing. I am not sure how quickly you're expecting your privacy screen to grow, hence, the cedar tree recommendation. If I were trying to put in a screening hedge here, I'd likely mix deciduous trees (assuming a power line isn't a issue where the border or hedge will be) with shrubs and perennials for a much more interesting look. However, if doing that, I'd expect slower growth and would have to resign myself to looking at the unsightly area next door for a bit longer. Sally, there's a book or two with some Oklahoma natives, and I think you'll be surprised to see how many of the plants in it are also in Sally W.'s books. Of course, there are several geographic regions in OK that vary wildly from one another (just like in Texas) so some of the OK natives are more for western OK. I'll try to find and link info about at least one of those books. There are not a great many books specifically about gardening in Oklahoma. Many of the regional gardening books in bookstores here in southern OK are the some ones you'll see in Texas---Neil Sperry, Howard Garrett, etc. I don't know if that is true in the rest of the state, but it certainly is true in southern OK. In your part of the state, with its usually abundant rainfall (notwithstanding the horrid drought in that area this spring and summer) and great soil (in most places), I think you'll find that many plants grow incredibly well there and you'll probably see faster growth than you're used to seeing in the Dallas area, which is somewhat more rainfall-challenged. A lot of the gardeners in NE OK grow lovely plants, like hydrangeas, that I can't grow in southern OK because we have so many recurring droughts here in this part of the state. In my part of the state, the most popular natives for borders or hedges seem to be Eastern Red Cedar, oak trees, trumpet creeper vines and plum trees (the small thicket-forming types). Someone near Thackerville has a trumpet creeper vine hedge that runs along a fence line and it is about 150' long and about 8' tall and is beautiful, but it isn't tall enough to fully screen off a bad view and it isn't evergreen. Possomhaw hollies are also abundant in my part of the state, but they're also deciduous. I suspect you can grow a much wider variety of plants in NE OK than we can in southern OK. Probably the most popular non-native in southern OK is the holly family. I am out in a very rural area, though, where not many people plant a screening hedge because we're so far apart from one another that we can't see each other's houses and a privacy screen isn't that essential. Here in southern OK, what passes for privacy screening is just the native plants that grow up along the fencelines, so that means lots of thicket plums, rough-leaved dogwoods (which are more a shrub than a tree here), shining sumac, smooth sumac, greenbrier, trumpet creeper vine, blackberries, winged elm, cedar elm, redbuds, American beautyberry, persimmon, poison ivy, osage orange, western hackberry, several kinds of ash, Kentucky Coffee tree, pepper vine (ampelopsis), black cherry, chokecherry, virginia creeper and several native grapes. So, in areas where the birds have planted a fenceline, all you have to do is engage in selective pruning to turn a messy fenceline row into a lovely, mixed hedge of native plants and when folks here do that, they tend to eventually end up with a hedge of Eastern Red Cedar because it eventually outgrows everything else. I don't think either of Steve Dobbs books focus exclusively on native plants, but both include many natives. I've linked one below, and the other one is referenced on the linked page too. Other than the books by Steve Dobbs, the books that I've used most since moving here are two small books by Doyle McCoy called "Roadside Trees and Shrubs of Oklahoma" and "Roadside Wild Fruits of Oklahoma". Really, though, I use my Texas gardening books as much as I use the Oklahoma ones. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Oklahoma Gardener's Guide

That's a beautiful viburnum in the above post! I am trying to landscape for wildlife in my yard, and this has been such a useful thread! So far, in my yard, a large holly seems to be the "favorite" of most wildlife. The birds use it for shelter year round, and it comes alive with bees in the spring when it flowers. Much of the recent plantings I have made (I only moved into my current house ~3 years ago) haven't been super succesful in attracting wildlife. I suspect the problem is that my yard is in the midst of a suburban residential area that almost entirely consists of manicured, empty green lawns. Maybe my lone yard, diversely planted as it is becoming, just isn't enough attraction for most wildlife? Birds in particular seem few and far between, though I do notice a variety of bees and other pollinators in the spring. Sadly, my neighbor just cleared out all the undergrowth and brush in a small patch of woods on his property because, as he told me, he was "afraid of snakes." I am worried that the brush pile I am trying to create on my own property will not last long...the folks in this neighborhood like to complain about any landscaping that deviates from the manicured norm. But I am trying! Claire

Here's a 3rd year update: these sumacs have done well in both HEAVY* all-day shade and full shade interrupted by a few hours of direct/reflected summer sunlight. The ones that get some direct light are about 3 ft across, while those in heavy shade are about half that. They were basically twigs when planted in 2012. (* HEAVY shade = in a pruned alcove under a 6 ft boxwood at the base of a 30 ft Chinese Pistache.) Color has also improved as they've gotten established. Still none of the solid fall reds seen elsewhere, but reliable yellow with red highlights that seem to be improving with age. Also holds the color longer than the first year. This one gets some sun and has been dropping it's leaves for 2 or 3 weeks: Color is also good on the smaller heavily shaded alcove plants, so not like Virginia Creeper that often doesn't color well without sun: Am pretty positive (so far) on this northern cultivar of a native TX species as a hardy and flexible deciduous ground cover for our Blackland Prairie clay. Has continued to look good with little attention or supplemental water in competition with tree roots where many other plants have failed or been devoured by the rabbits. Will prune/remove the cover shrubs this winter for more light to try to accelerate the growth to their eventual ~8 ft width.

I got my Desert Willow at the Moonlight Madness sale at TLC three years ago. Its not one of the fancy ones, it had no label and was marked down to $3.00 in the cruddy looking, damaged and less than perfect plants section, I call that the Hospital and its where I head first. The weird thing about it is the leaves are very fragrant perfuming the whole front yard at times and people who walk by comment on that along with the looks of it. Smells strong, like a woodsy type of potpourii. I posted this on the Texas site last year and no one had ever run into that so I figured my little native looking, not so fancy DW type has done quite well even if its not as fancy as the one up the street. Its still blooming, has been since early in the season. The seeds sprout easily so if you see one around there with pods you could try that, these trees grow fast. I thought of a few shrub/small tree understudy ideas. 'Forest Pansy' redbud is a pretty tree as an understudy because it gives good color in an otherwise green situation. It has huge deep red leaves and blooms heavy, even on the trunk. Cotinus coggygria aka Purple Smoke Tree, needs at least half day sun but its gorgeous especially when its 'smoking' and looks like its covered in purple haze. It has round red leaves that smell really good when crushed & is well behaved. Three Leaf Sumac aka Fragrant Sumac. I saw several mature ones at the History Museum here in OKC, they looked great and were covered in fuzzy berries. I now have 2 babies cuz I fell in love with it and its tough. Turns red in fall. I'd plant smooth sumac if I had a big space....... but wouldn't dare in a small one. Ribes aureum (Golden Currant) Shepherdia argentea (Silver Buffaloberry) Robinia neomexicana (New Mexico Locust--blooms pink but it suckers) Blackhaw viburnum--- I want one bad. I got a Ninebark but its not doing so good. Obviously I need to move it to a more moist spot. Mine is Physocarpa 'Coppertina' and I really would like to get that nice pumpkin color in my landscape however currently its nearly leafless from drought since its in spot where trees suck the ground dry. I believe as a rule they do quite well in Oklahoma and there's several different cultivars with very nice leaf colors to choose from. I just came in from setting out several starts of the regular type of Nandina I got to dig out from a big plant next door, even though its not native and some purists would scream bloody murder, they will grow in dry shade, have red berries and colorful foliage, they've been planted there previously and did just fine. Come fall or spring its full sun in that dry difficult corner and anything will look better than a nearly bald, half dead Ninebark. I'll dig him up & move him when he goes dormant, poor guy.