posted 5 years ago
Hi all. Hope I can tap into the collective wisdom. My neighbor to the south has tons of weedy trees on our fence line. There are one or two nice(ish) sycamores, a ton of Norway maples of various sizes, from whips to fully mature, a mostly dead butternut, and one or two completely dead trunks that have started to fall, but are propped up by other trees. This is all on a border that is only 110 feet long. Needless to say, I have a problem with this situation, and when I asked to do something about it, I was rebuffed, because he doesn’t care. (He now lives full time in Florida, and has carved up this large historic house into cheap apartments).
I have inherited a ratty white picket fence on the line, but I have absolutely no interest in repairing and painting it. I’d like to create a privacy hedge of some kind along the fence line, and as it gets tall enough, just remove the fence.
My wish list for this challenging area:
1: visual border. Doesn’t need to be so dense that it’s actually a privacy screen
2: Tall enough that it will eventually discourage deer from jumping over and eating my everything
3. Ideally native-ish, or at least supports a bit of life
4. Moderate to quick growing.
Challenges:
1. Norway maples create dense shade and suck all the moisture out of the soil. They are pretty in fall, though.
2. This is on the southern edge, too!
3. USA Ag zone 6b, so the potential for hard winters.
Features:
1. The kids’ play structure is nearby, and we load it up underneath with arborist wood chips every year, so that soil is becoming nice and rich and deep over time. When we remove it as they outgrow it, it’ll be a lovely place to plant.
2. Everything on his side is deciduous, so there’s sun in winter, which will probably help ground covers in the future.
3. Some of the trees are dead and dying, and I’ll probably Try to get the city to make him remove them at some point in the next couple of years.
4. Unrelated, but the trees shade the south side of my house in summer, which I’m sure keeps me from having to run the AC except during the hardest and longest heat waves.
5. His son killed my cat with a car, something I don’t actually hold against him (cat shouldn’t have been outside), but it means that he does feel a bit guilty.
I’ve thought about yews and arborvitae and mountain laurel. I have some small spice Bush (less than a year old) that I am cultivating in pots for the next layer inwards from the hedge.
Thanks, folks!
Daniel
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Clay, shade, neighbor’s Norway maples.....we’ll work it out.