Narrow evergreen for privacy screen
Comments (24)
mmmm12COzone5
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoFor some reason around here they sell a green, flat leafed (not sure that is the right term) juniper that dies for everyone. I have no idea why it is even sold in our area but all the new homes or people who relandscape generally have alot of them. Then they die within a year or two. Stay away from anything grass green. Go for one with the silver/blue or greyish tone. The foliage should be more narrow and not resemble a flat leaf.
We have lots of privacy junipers. Some are being kept narrow and some are allowed to grow more naturally. Generally they all way outgrow the tag and on-line info. We trim them to fit the space and will show you some results. Also a tree trimmer taught us the trick of only trimming the branches that come out for the ones we wanted to keep narrow and allowing the ones that go up to keep growing and that has helped alot.
These are 5 skyrocket junipers. Maybe 20 ft tall. Trimmed back to keep the driveway accessible. The green is paper thin at this point. They do not have alot of internal green so it is easy to trim into the wood. This is the south side.
This is the north side. Originally there were some aspens on this side that probably forced the junipers to grow crooked. Also we get alot of north wind in the winter that has probably affected them.
Side view.
These are two baby sky rockets after the snow bend their branches down. This seems to happen to all my junipers at times. When they are bigger we trim out the branches that get bent. Not sure what to do with such misshapen young ones.
Next up, Moonglow junipers.Related Discussions
PNW privacy screen, tall, narrow, columnar, evergreen 20-30'?
Comments (10)Semiarundinaria is quite vertical. There are many unconfined plantings of it in the area, that have not spread all over - this is true of other species used here also, the outcome varies with the situation. But any running bamboo can suddenly start coming up yards away from the mother clump, making the installation of barrier essential where such an occurrence would be a problem. All the full height Thuja occidentalis cultvars have approximately the same vigor. The 'Smaragd' will be so much more prevalent than the others because it is what people are looking for. The only problem with it is it is more prone to poor soil drainage than most others, resulting in frequent internet questions about part of a hedge of it going brown. I have also seen it browned in sections by mites during hot weather. But this latter development is probably not especially peculiar to 'Smaragd'. 'Oregon Blue' is merely an otherwise more or less typical Chamaecyparis lawsoniana with a saturated blue coloration. The vigor of some local specimens suggests these are programmed to grow into towering trees just like thousands of other examples of the species in local plantings. In the wild the species is interesting for growing just about everywhere within the comparatively small range it occupies, unlike many other wild tree species now confined to small ranges - and also being limited to specific site conditions within those ranges. So no, there is no particular soil moisture regime etc. that must be provided for it - numerous other cultivars of C. lawsoniana are still all over the place on local properties, despite the inroads of several different root pathogens in later times. The main thing is to place it in soil that drains well - and is not or does not become infested with one of the water molds that kills even specimens that have been in place for decades....See MoreLooking for suggestions for evergreen privacy screen (Zone 10a)
Comments (12)I inherited an oleander hedge creating a privacy hedge for my front yard in Phoenix, AZ. Laughs at the sun. SUPERB privacy and acoustic barrier. I keep mine about six feet high, but can easily be grown to amazing thirty feet tall "walls" around here. I do get irrigation so I cannot speak to how often you must water it as I never do except for 18 irrigations a year, but the thick waxy coated leaves speak to a plant that conserves water. Pretty red, pink or white flowers or combine them alternating throughout your hedge. Few pests. Birds like to duck in and out of them. Downsides: Hard to get rid of if you change your mind. Need to be dug out 6 feet down. Whole plant poisonous. Generally don't eat it but since it tastes bad anyway not usually a problem. When cutting during maintenance the latex sap can irritate some people's skin. Occasionally, like once a year, I find a wasp's nest in them....See MoreCompact evergreen privacy screen
Comments (1)Emerald Arb has a bit of a reputation of being more prone to winter burn then others, though I haven't had any problems to speak of. It is very tightly columnar, so doesn't knit together as well as others. I think Techny probably has the best overall look of all the arbs, dense but soft, and grows quickly, but will get fairly broad, 8 feet or so. Holmstrup is nice but grows slowly. I also really like the upright green junipers, like Spartan or Hetz Columnar. They have good berries and and dynamic texture if left unsheared. Also investigate the columnar forms of Scotch and White Pines or even plain old Black Hill's Spruce as part of the mix. Ted...See MoreEvergreen edible privacy screen options?
Comments (32)Sugarcane is a member of the true grass family, and its growth season mimics common lawn grass fairly closely, so if it is warm enough for your lawn to stay green year round it should be warm enough for sugarcane. It is grown commercially as far north as the northern edge of zone 9a here in Louisiana, though much more commonly in southern 9a and 9b. As to citrus, I have several in ground citrus trees, but the one that is probably the best candidate for hedge use in the short term is my Cara Cara orange tree, its growth pattern is very dense and upright, reaching over 7 ft of height and about 3 ft of width in under 3 years (planted from a 24 inch tall mail order tree just a couple of weeks short of 3 years ago). I also have Satsumas and a Meyers lemon that are about the same age, and all are shorter than the Cara Cara, with the less dense foliage. I also have a couple of 20+ year old Satsuma trees that are 15-18 ft wide and until I recently topped them were getting up over 12 ft tall, though I would not want to try to turn one into a hedge as they tend to be much more spreading in growth sending out long drooping limbs in all directions.. Of course I live on the 8b/9a line and citrus grows slowly when soil temperatures are below about 70 degrees F which is about 5 months of the year here, so they may grow faster where you live. The advantage I see to sugar cane is of course it is much faster growing (one of the fasted growing plants in the world), and its growth habit is much like bamboo so is prone to growing in dense clusters of stalks making for an easy to manage hedge, though one does have to be cautious of the sharp edged leaves. p.s. be aware modern commercial hybrid sugarcane gets MUCH taller than the heirloom varieties like Blue Ribbon, Florida Red, Home Green, etc. often reaching heights of 15-19 feet....See Moremmmm12COzone5
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoWe mostly have Moonglow junipers. They survive everything and are very drought tolerant. Seem to be more strong willed about growing straight than the Skyrocket that were pushed around by the other trees.
Here are some we are keeping trimmed back to keep access to our water fall. This is a more full through the center juniper than the Skyrocket. It is the one where we use the branches going up we keep and branches headed out we trim method to keep them thin.
This is the only one that has been trimmed so far this year. You can see the branches going up were kept while those headed out were trimmed off. I can see from this picture we need to trim more along the top.
These are Moonglows that we are keeping in the 5-6 ft deep range. Side view.
You can see that to keep gate access we need to keep these thinner. They have not been trimmed this year. We generally have to to it every couple of years. Also the neighbor does not want them on his fence.
More natural Moonglow to follow.
mmmm12COzone5
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoThis is a Moonglow that has been allowed to get round but is trimmed to
keep access to the bench. It is huge. We also have to trim it
back off our own fence. You would not want to get these for your space unless you planned to keep it trimmed up. If we did not trim it the bench and fence would have been eaten by now.
You can see that due to the internal branching habit even with triming you still have internal green. Some Junipers, like our Skyrockets and some of our low growing ones are only green on the outside and it is very easy to trim into deadwood.
Closer view of bench area.
I do see some people with better behaved Junipers but they probably trim to shape yearly as otherwise they get rangy like ours.
In short, I don't have a suggestion, just giving you our experiences.
gardenchloe
3 years ago
treebarb Z5 Denver
3 years agommmm12COzone5
3 years ago
DeZi Lo
3 years agoJerry (Broomfield CO 5)
3 years agoWe have had a lot of damage from heavy snow on upright. Junipers in the past.
We planted an Arnold Sentinel pine at the front corner of our house. much more resillent. Grows to max 20ft and max 4'-5' wide.
here is an internet photo
Here it is at The Tree Farm - they say it gets bigger
http://www.thetreefarm.com/pine-arnold-s-sentinelgardenchloe thanked Jerry (Broomfield CO 5)gardenchloe
3 years agommmm12COzone5
3 years agoSkybird - z5, Denver, Colorado
3 years agogardenchloe
3 years agoL Clark (zone 4 WY)
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agotreebarb Z5 Denver
3 years agolast modified: 3 years ago
popmama (Colorado, USDA z5)
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agogardenchloe
3 years agotreebarb Z5 Denver
3 years agoJerry (Broomfield CO 5)
3 years agogardenchloe
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoHere is the picture. The fence is 18 feet long. Thanks for asking me to measure it because I really should have done so... These were two of the dogwoods there but we just removed one because it was too close to the AC units. I wanted to replace them both with narrow evergreens and maybe add a third one just for privacy. I am hoping for something not super tall just because it's not a huge area.
treebarb Z5 Denver
3 years ago
Jerry (Broomfield CO 5)