Tip of the Week: Green Screen Options
Posted in Gardening Tips on October 5th, 2009 by Sonia Uyterhoeven – Be the first to comment |
Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. Join her each weekend for home gardening demonstrations on a variety of topics in the Home Gardening Center. |
In the world of garden design there is the concept of a borrowed landscape: If life offers you a beautiful vista of valleys, mountains, or the ocean, by all means use it to your advantage and invite the natural beauty of the adjacent landscape into your own garden.
Most people, however, have the opposite problem when it comes to their backyards. More often than not it is a noisy street; an unsightly neighbor; or an ugly fence that needs hiding rather than highlighting.
A natural screen of evergreens buffers the sound of traffic while providing a nice visual barrier year round. In the past, homeowners would reach for the fastest growing evergreen, Leyland cypress (x Cupressocyparis leylandii), and watch it shoot upward beyond control. While this works for some, for others a row of green soldiers reaching up to the sky is not appealing. Fortunately, there are options.
Eastern arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis, cultivar ‘Smaragd’, pictured above) is a readily available source, though it has a reputation of being “deer candy.” Instead, try the western (Thuja plicata) or the oriental arborvitae (Thuja orientalis). A good cultivar of the western arborvitae for a large screen is Thuja plicata ‘Green Giant’ and the improved ‘Steeplechase’. If you don’t have a deer problem, try the columnar eastern arborvitae Thuja occidentalis ‘Degroot’s Spire’. read more »