I am needing to screen out my neighbours shed. I live in zone 5 and it is a mostly shady area. Right underneath telephone/electric cable/wire. I am thinking arborvitie. But it tends to be fickle here. An evergreen would be nice but not too expensive one. And I need to keep it under the wires. Of course I want instant........I would consider a fast growing decidious.
That vine was my attempt and it has been there 3 years, it is not bright enough for it and it is to be moved......
How about something like gooseberry?
trumpet vine? dogwood tree. hawthorn
Thank you so much for your suggestions. Its nice to have some advise from the experts over here. I am almost always growing hosta and I am blessed with mature trees and bushes for the most part - I never think to plant shrubs and trees. So I do not have much experience in this area.
I would like to try to stay out of the invasives or plants which would be invasive to the area. In my area, trumpet vine and gooseberry are considered invasives.
I love dogwood, how fast do they grow here? Back home ( I am from the west coast) they were a bit slow growing, but I know here things grow differently? I wonder how much of a screen they would supply?
Maybe a Inkberry holly?
A holly would be nice. I never thought about that!!
Trumpet vine!!!! I think it is invasive anywhere. We had to move 200 miles away to get rid of ours!
lol. yes but you wouldn't see the neighbors shed!
Well, I may not see my own shed either....rofl!
You could use the native Wisteria, which is much less aggressive then it's Asian counterpart.
I am hoping for a tree or a shrub as opposed to a vine. This area does not get much sun and I would prefer evergreen. Fast growing? Is this too much to ask of a tree/shrub? I do not know much about conifers but love them and think this would be the best way to go.
I do like Wisteria, are they invasive here? I never knew that. They do tend to be grown on trees in Vancouver and look very lovely when in bloom.
The Asian wisterias (W. sinensis and W. floribunda) are large and aggressive pretty much everywhere, they're invasive in many places too but even if they're not invasive in your area, they're still not a well-behaved plant, it'll eat your shed and your neighbor's too before you know it. W. frutescens is an American native wisteria that's much better behaved but unfortunately not as widely available in the trade as the Asian ones. None of them are evergreen.
I had a Blue Point Juniper at my old house that never got too big. The new owners cut it down for some reason.
Arborvitaes and upright yews are going to be the most tolerant of shade for your situation. How do yews do in sunny winters where you are? It's pretty much death to them up here in Minnesota.
For sizing, large shrubs are the best fit, although not evergreen. Lilacs or many viburnum types will grow quickly to the 8 feet that seems most appropriate for your need. And growth would be slow after that compared to a small tree. Come to think of it, there are some evergreen viburnums that might do well for you. I just don't know about your aread, but even here, Viburnum x 'Willowood' holds its foliage into January.
i think viburnums would be great. many have berries etc. snowberry has the white berries.
some bloom like hydrangea and quite tall. what are they snowball viburnum? i wish i had the shade to grow them.
Yes Len, they are call Snowball viburnums. They bloom in the spring, whereas Snowball hydrangeas bloom in the late summer/fall.
Just my opinion, but I've never seen a snowberry I liked. And probably not a good candidate anyway because it suckers to form a thicket given time (many years).
lol. i saw some in a rest area in maine, the foilage isn't much to look at but i think the white
berries are different and pleasing in a certain way.
Snowball viburnums: I looked that up and think it may be a good candidate. It looks to be a pretty bush/shrub.
How about red twig dogwood. This is more of a bush, it grows pretty fast and the red branches make an interesting sight in the winter.
I have 3 red twig dogwood, it would not be large enough, I think in this area.??? I do like them. The area is not much viewed in the winter.
Redtwig dogwoods would work fine, too. Not much of a spring show with flowers or fall with berries, like viburnums, though.
I am leaning toward Snowball Viburnum. That has been the best suggestion so far.
Coral Bark Japanese Maple?
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/14015/
That is pretty, but wondering how practical for a hedge type situation? Also the cost of it may be prohibitive in my situation. The viburnum is still the top choice for price, coverage etc. I am also looking at perhaps using a spruce or something for hedging.
a spruce . . . . . for hedging
That would be a mighty big hedge!
lol....I was thinking of keeping it at bay by trimming every year....
i bought a coral bark jap maple and planted between 2 hoopsi blue spruce. one week later we had that late freeze for a week and it died. $200 vanished in a week. shoulda got the amur maple. ouch that hurt!
Regarding the spruce hedge, it can be done, and you'd only need to prune once a year.
Our arboretum here had a white spruce hedge for about 30+ years. They just removed it last season and replaced it with small trees of same. The hedge was about 6ft high and wide before its demise. Still, a bit rough and unkept looking for any yard less than a couple acres, in my opinion.
Well maybe not a spruce then......I just saw some sort of weeping spruce at the neighbours. It may be just the thing. I think it is more of a shrub than a tree?
There are dwarf and/or globular forms of spruces that would be shrubby. I guess people down there use Hemlock trees (evergreen) as hedges sometimes. Smaller needled and would shear better too. Would grow in sun or shade.
What about a ligustrum. They are evergreen, grow kinda fast. And I saw a japanese privet that after it had grown up big, they trimmed the bottom branches out like they do on crape myrtles and burford hollies to make like a small tree. Then you could even make a whole garden there with it later if you chose to make it a tree. I saw the idea in a book but am kind of new to gardening so I don't really know if it would be stupid or what. You know you get all these ideas but never know if they really work til you try them. Maybe someone with more experience could chime in.
Hemlock are lovely trees, I just saw a Ponderosa pine grown as a topiary...I could not believe it actually!!! It was lovely, like a well groomed christmas tree!!!!
Pondersosa Pine would be about the last cold hardy evergreen I would think to be conducive to topariary. The extra long needles would be very hard to work with. This is a Pondersoa pine in the pic, and the needles are at least an inch longer now that it is established.
Yes, that is why I mentioned it, I was also very surprised to see it and see it not just being, but doing extrodinarily well. It looked like a really full Christmas tree. I will have to take some pictures if I can. I was looking at the garden as part of a selection process for our local garden walk which I am helping put together. And she had some very nice topiary as well as a cute little pond area and a rustic country garden which backed onto corn fields. I loved the Pine so much I had to take a second look at it. I had never seen anyone grow it as a topiary before. But it had filled in very well and she said she did have to trim it alot.
