03-07-2003, 07:20 PM
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planting fir trees in the back garden as a screen
wrote in :
I'm not trying to block out every cm of concrete view. If I could
block up the 2nd level of the flats and leave the 3rd I'd be happy.
Sticking a trellis up for plants to grow is the same as having the
evergreens.
It isn't, really.
A trellis/fence combination will give you quicker coverage than any tree,
and will never get taller. Any conifer you plant is likely to try to grow
considerably taller than you want it.
So, if you choose trellis and fencing, as many people have sensibly
advised, you will get faster results, and be less likely to upset the
neighbours, and have to spend less on getting it cut. You can grow fast
climbers like clematis over it, and have good coverage and fantastic
flowers by this time next year.
If you choose an evergreen shrub like escallonia, as others have also
sensibly advised, it will grow pretty quickly, but will never try to become
a forest giant, and will also give you attractive flowers. You could grow
a rambling rose through it for more interest. I have a hedge of
escallonia, roses and berberis that is about that tall, and in flower
almost all year round.
If you plant a blank green wall of conifers, you will tend to focus
interest on what you are trying to screen out. People in the flats will
look over it to see what you are hiding, and the third floor that you can't
hide will seem to hover over the hedge.
Make the hedge/fence interesting, and both you and the people in the flats
will focus on it, rather than on what they can see over it.
Victoria
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