Privacy Trees?

hey, reading along (not all of it)... it sounds like such a headache to me. wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to just go with a fence?


<running out quick>

Believe me Dag, there's a lot more to building a fence than it looks. I went to a seminar at home depot a few months ago and the seminar was on how to build a fence.
After seeing it in action, I realized I couldn't do it without help, so I decided to look for pre-fab fences, and I did the pricing on both the pre-fab and what my cost would be to build and the pre-fab ones ended up being cheaper than building it myself.

I did a little research on trees tonight and found that it would be much much cheaper for me to plant trees than to go with a fence. Besides, I can't even fathom the thought of painting a 100ft fence every so many years. That's just way too much work and as much as I hate to admit it, I'm not getting any younger and I already have more to do than I can really handle.

My lawn alone takes me 4 hours to cut, so the thought of painting fences just drains me!

I need a $%^&in man!

Oh, and I checked my hardiness zone and I am 4b.

yeah, i can imagine that the fence wold be expensive.

then again, trees are too, and there's so much work that has to go into them every year, ongoingly...it just doesn't strike me as particularly easier or that much cheaper, especially over time.

but i'm no gardener. it just seems like a royal hassle that might not be worth it to me.

That's why I'm looking for trees that don't require any maintaining ;-)

no such thing, i'm afraid.

That's not what I'm told ;-)

I've never seen my cousin do anything to his trees and he planted them 3 years ago.

well, when the trees are older, maybe. but there's still mulching, taking care of the soil, curing diseases.... and trimming the lawn around trees is not gonna be easier than around the fence... but it will be nicer, unless some of the trees die and have to be replaced... dunno.

I've got time, so I'll do all the research and then decide.

Either way I go, it's gonna be a job.

I am a gardener, and a pretty tough one too. But, I would rather plant one hundred feet of fence than one hundred feet of trees.

you dont have to build a tree , and then have to paint it every 3 years.

The only tree Id saty away from is the arbovitae aince they get bagworms which can denude and kill the tree I thought you were pretty set on Lelands or privet. Dont listen to city people, they dont know what the hell theyre talking about..

.

If you keep horses even briefly, theyll eat yer fences, horses like to chew on wood . My one neighbor back home has a bunch of draft horses and he will not use anything except the old style rail and post fenceing. SO hes constantly replacing rails each year as his beloved Belgian horses eat his fencing. Belgians can gnaw through cinder blocks if they want. Smaller horses are just as bad.

Maybe if you plant one tree a week.... or have a tree-planting party, it won't be such a hassle. Would be hard to sell that one though... Maybe you can offer friends to have plaques with their names on the treest they planted.

Went to home depot yesterday for a seminar and I went to check out what they had left of trees and I found 2 of them that fit what I'm looking for. Wish I had a pen and paper to write them down, but one was a mini,or dwarf cedar spruce (or something like that) and it even said on the tag that they are best left to grow naturally on their own. (No maintaine) :-D

I can't, for the life of me, remember what the other one was, but it looked promising :-D

My cousin planted 3 different kinds of trees in his back yard, which look really really nice, so maybe I'll plant a few different kinds.


Farmer, I hear ya on the fence thing. I gave it lots of thought and I can't imagine painting such a large fence every 3 years.

I'm glad I checked out those trees at home depot because now I know that there are trees that'll work for me.

Spruce are tough trees that can handle the rough weather conditions in these parts and I'm glad I found some that are small enough for my needs.
We are surrounded by tall spruce and I love them. I also think the smaller spruce would blend in right nice, allowing me to keep with the country/wilderness thing we've got going on.

Also, another reason why I prefer to go with trees is to give the animals a place to settle. Love my critters :-D

All I'd need to do around here is go to the liquor store, grab a case of beer, tell people in the store I am having a tree planting party and I'd have me a convoy

Farmerman - And the leylands have a variety that grows only 12 feet tall?

Montana - they'll stay small? I like the idea of planting more than one species.

Will check it out. I decided that I'd be content with up to 20ft. This will give me a much wider selection.

The ones I looked at get 10-15ft.

how wide?

I'd like them to have some considerable width to them, but not to the point where the tree is round. I like pointed tree, which of course is thin at the top and gets thicker going down.

I'd like them to be at least 4ft wide, up to around 7ft. Somewhere in that area. The wider the tree, the less I have to plant, but i'd rather plant more than to have stubby looking trees, so I guess it would depend on the height of the tree as well.

Oh, you meant how wide were they

I think it said they were 4-6ft wide, but I looked at a bunch of them and i don't remember. I know I looked and it worked for me.

I'm headed back there this weekend and I'm gonna bring a pencil and paper with me and if they still have some left, I'll right down the info of the ones that caught my eye.

I did see some yew and I really liked them, but they're way too expensive. I won't be buying my trees there anyways because as much as I'd like too, their prices are way too high.

The trees at home depot are too expensive?

Do get the info and then do more research online. The sellers of plants have a way of sometimes glossing over the bad aspects of the plants they sell.