I never thought I'd being saying those words. Arborvitae is just so....boring and ugly. Sadly, it is great at being a quick, tall, narrow, evergreen screen to hide uglier things or to provide some much needed privacy.This past weekend our neighbors lined our fence (on their side) with at least a dozen 3-4' high arborvitae plants. I was thrilled! We live on a hill, and because their home is slightly higher than ours, we can see right into each others' homes when we are out back. We can also easily see each other. And we are all out back a lot!
Our main living areas are toward the back of our house, as is theirs, so privacy has been hard to come by. Whe
n we first moved in I planted a dwarf evergreen magnolia that will soon block our patio door from their patio door. But it only helps from a direct angle.Last summer I rigged three sections of a tall lattice structure to the fe
nce and planted two evergreen clematis (Clematis armandii). This should help by next year once the fast-growing clematis has a chance to take off. Sadly, one of the two plants died over the winter, and will need to be replaced. Th
ough fast-growing, this means it will be another year before there's really good coverage.So, when I saw them planting the arborvitae, I was thrilled. It will give us privacy without taking up even an inch of our yard. But how fast will it grow? I've read anywhere from 6"-3' per year. Man, I hope it's closer to the 3' per year!!
This reminded me of another neighbor/arborvitae story. Our former next-door neighbors planted one arborvitae front and center in their front yard. They even put a ring of rocks around it to highlight the plant. It always made me giggle. The rest of their yard looked quite nice; I just found it odd that they'd make the arborvitae the focal point!
2 comments:
I have such mixed feelings about arborvitae. We have it surrounding our whole yard and I kind of like the green screen it provides but I would rather have tall fencing with espaliered fruit trees on it. Plus they eventually get pretty wide and though they don't grow super fast, they do need to be trimmed up. I enjoyed trimming my boxwood hedge at my last house but wasn't so thrilled about trimming the arborvitae.
But you've got the best of it since it's actually in your neighbor's yard. You will have all the benefits with none of the downsides.
Featuring a single arborvitae would have amused me too!
The fruit trees sound perfect! But I'm not sure I take the time to keep them trained/pruned properly. I'm a little too much of a lazy gardener to keep up with them!
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