Written by Empire National Nursery, Your Southwest Missouri Source for Fast Growing Trees.
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Privacy Screens

As spring nears, people are getting more of that planting feeling. One of
the questions that keeps coming up are "What types of trees make good
privacy screens?"

Good question that has many answers. There are several things to keep in
mind:

1) What Plant Zone you're in (remember that topic?)
2) the space available
3) the desired outcome
4) value vs. "green junk"
5) time
6) cost
7) maintenance
8) neighbor aggravation/legalities
9) Others?

1) we talked about that, but if anyone has questions or wants a zone map,
just ask.
2) How wide your desired screen area is, plays an important role. "You
can't confine a shade tree in a 4x4 area very easily."
3) Dense, year-round, 20 feet tall, trimmable, no leaves to clean up
continually, etc. are typical desires for privacy screens
4) When you plant things, especially trees, plant what will increase the
value of your property, a long-term thought for you.
5) Do you have to have it now, then plant something already big. Or, if
you desire a dense screen in 3 years, or 5, then you can save money (and
your back) and plant smaller trees.
6) Related to #5, the bigger the tree, the more costly. Smaller plants
often grow as fast as larger ones, yet not as branched. In a few years,
you'd never really know the difference in many cases. "Biggest bang for
the buck" may well be the lil' fellas
7) How much trimming and clean up will be involved comparing this tree vs.
that?
8) If you plant something that overhangs the fence, or send roots into
your neighbors sewer lines, guess what?
9) What other considerations might you have, I touched on a few.

Ok, so given the background-intro., what trees make good screens?
The whole cypress family - cypress, (false) cedars, junipers. They stay
green year round, grow dense, grow slow to fast, but can get huge or stay
very small, check the plant zones. Good nationwide choice - American
Arbor-Vitae. Western red cedar or eastern red cedar (which is a juniper)
are pretty good candidates also. Italian cypress is great, tall, very
narrow shape, dense, but limited plant zone range.

Other conifers - Douglas-Fir, the true firs, and spruces. They will grow
mostly nationwide, do well especially where its colder, growth rate is
usually slow. Douglas-Fir can grow very fast. All are trimmable, stay
dense year round, but they will get large and medium broad over time. The
larger specimens can be pretty spendy. Value - Colorado Blue Spruce.

The pines - as a young screen, they will be dense, but in time, they can
get huge and the lower branches on the trunks usually drop/die, possibly
losing that privacy. Grow rate is medium to fast. Scotch pine and Austrian
pines are good to plant. Go with smaller trees for better planting
survival and cost savings.

Redwoods and  Giant Sequoias - they can be good, dense and fast growth,
but limited climate zones and they get somewhat gigantic!

Hardwoods? Yes, many hardwoods and shrubs make great privacy screens too,
but the chief drawback is fall and winter bare stems often negate the
screening effect. Plant several rows, if space allows it, and the mass of
twigs in the winter will be somewhat screening.

Mix conifers and hardwoods? If the space allows it, plant two to four
rows, staggered, of slower growing conifers and faster growing hardwoods
or shrubs. The hardwoods make fast a "seasonal screen",  then in time the
conifers will make the permanent screen.

We'll address fence lines and shelterbelts later.



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Now we recently released our book on Screens and Windbreaks. For that, take the Book link on the side and/or the bottom of this page. Interesting subject, and a lot to talk about, so ponder your planting projects, Spring is close...


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