Best trees or bushes for privacy?

[athena1277]

The cotton field behind our house is about to be turned into a new subdivision.  We have a chain-link fence around the back yard and won’t be replacing it any time soon.  I would like to plant some trees or tall bushes to give us some privacy from or new neighbors.  What would you recommend?  I hate to make an obvious wall of trees, but I don’t want to feel like they will be seeing every thing we do.  We are in N AL, I don’t know what zone that is.

[barnwife]

I'd check this site for advice, even down to the soil type and county.  Around here I'd say hybrid poplar/willow for fast growth, hybrid spruce for evergreens,  and arbor vitae (white cedar) for long term low maintenance and long life after the hybrids are dead and gone.  Those are more than likely bad ideas for AL.

https://www.aces.edu/blog/tag/landscaping/?c=lawn-garden&orderby=title&page=2

[Katy]

Listening.  One of our neighbor's houses just sold, it's sat empty for years so we have a sudden need for privacy we didn't need before.

[alisoncooks]

IDK but do consider the seasons. Maybe a mix of trees, where you have some green while some are flowering, would look more natural (than a wall of evergreens). But you'll definitely want something that keeps its leaves in the winter! We have zero privacy in the winter, though we can barely see our rear neighbors in the spring - fall. 

[Pam in CT]

Around here, when folks want to put up a long wall of something not-too-expensive that will grow in FAST to hide something like a chain fence they usually use the upright hybrid form (not the sprawling-over-needs-pruning-or-it-looks-untidy natural form) of forsythia.  It grows in FAST but then it doesn't grow too much more, and it's quite forgiving about pruning -- do it, don't do it, do in in the theoretically "proper" time of just-after-flowering, do it whenever you get around to it, do it with carefully sharpened and disinfected shears, whack it down with electric shears, it doesn't matter, you can't kill the stuff.  Well, there's a lot of virtue in all of that.  Downsides are its arguably garish color and that it loses its leaves in winter (though it blooms so early that it fills in by the time anyone's spending time in the yard).

Privet is fast and cheap too, and some are evergreen. If you don't have deer, arborvitae is always evergreen, grows fast and has a very nice shape (but if you have deer, forget it).

If you don't like the look of a solid WALL of the same thing lined up unbroken like soldiers against the fence, maybe mix in some cotoneaster upon occasion -- they have small evergreen leaves, sweet white or pale pink blossoms turning to bright red berries that attract birds, and attractive arching branches that you can cut and use in dramatic arrangements. I am very fond of cotoneaster and it isn't fussy about soil or sun, though it's too sprawling and slow-growing to work as the only species in a hedge.

I love boxwood but it grows too slow for fence-disguising purposes.  

If you have a LONG timeframe, some sun but not direct sun, and a patient disposition, I have a master gardener friend who waited five years for climbing hydrangea to bloom (it *grew in* the first year and covered the fence, with attractive glossy near-evergreen leaves -- she's in NJ in zone 7 -- but it took 5 years before it *bloomed*).  It is GLORIOUS now.  It starts blooming in early August and carries straight through to end-September.

 

 

ETA also whatever you do, it'll have more interest and break up the long line if you interplant low-maintenance flowering vines every so often and let them do their thing.  My favorite low-maintenance slacker gardener vine is clematis, which comes in all sorts of colors and bloom times.  Once it's established and happy, the lawn mower can run over it and it'll spring back the next season. Not that I know that from personal experience.

Edited February 12, 2019 by Pam in CT

[gardenmom5]

do arborvitae grow in your area? (for hot dry areas a tall narrow Cyprus, or even a pencil holly for a living hedge.) they make a good living fence.  then you can put more 'decorative' trees in as well. that grow fast, and will give more height and breadth. as well as shade.

[almondbutterandjelly]

Go to your local nursery/plant store and ask.  They will have plentiful recommendations.  It is very area-specific.

[happi duck]

Also, if you have a local arboretum, botanical garden, or county office they may have a plant clinic\advice office you could call.