We are developing some land in Blanco and I need a relatively fast growing (coverage within 2 years), evergreen screen of some kind that will do well in that area. Here are some other "wishes" about it. Would like it to be drought tolerant once it is established and deer "proof" (or as close as you can come to that). It will need to grow to 8-10' and be pretty dense in order to screen some shipping containers from view of the house and drive. I read in another thread that Burford Holly makes a good screen, but I don't know if it would do well in the Texas hill country.
Any thoughts on Burford Holly? Any other suggestions? I'm notparticularly fond of arborvitaes.
Tonya
Suggestions for a fast growing screen?
Tonya, for a start you might check this list of deer resistant plants;
http://www.npsot.org/plant_lists/deer_resistant.html
then go from there.
Josephine.
Thanks Josephine, good place to start. I have not seen this particular list.
Cenizo could work maybe? It would look a little shaggy at the top probably. Cherry laurel maybe. Elderberry is fast with water - maybe a mixed hedge with something fast, and then something slower but better with low water? Or maybe mix the screening by height - a smaller shrub (3-5 feet) to cover the low part, and small trees to cover the top? (OK I'm not a big monoculture fan.) Something like agarita or even rosemary on the bottom, then some hill country trees on the top?
There's always cedar...
Maybe some of those mutabilis roses? They're not dense enough to screen by themselves, but maybe with some other greenery they'd kind of distract. Actually I guess any of the fast-growing vines, if fast is an important criteria, and just build a support frame however high you want.
Whatever you get, if you can get in temporary irrigation for a couple of years, they should take off, even though later on they'll have to tolerate less water.
Thanks for all the suggestions realbirdlady. I'll look all of those up. It's interesting that you mentioned cedar because we have (well ok, DH has) cleared a bunch of that out and we had considered trying to transplant some. It's still an idea. We sure know it will thrive there! As for the vines, do you know of any that are evergreen? I really like purple hyacinth bean, but, of course it dies every year even though it reseeds wonderfully. I really want coverage year round, though.
Thanks again for the ideas, I'll read up on them.
Crossvine is a wonderful evergreen vine,
http://wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=BICA
also Coral Honeysucle
http://wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=LOSE
I don't know how deer resistant they are.
Those are both pretty, Josephine. I will see what I can find out about deer resistance...
Soils in the Hill Country are generally very shallow to almost non-existent and alkaline. My suggestion is to look into native shrubs and trees. They would have a greater chance of fulfilling your wishes. If you wish to grow non-natives, you can get a better idea of soil depths and composition by downloading a PDF files of the Soils Survey, by county, from this site:
http://soils.usda.gov/survey/online_surveys/texas/
This link has some good information in what are called Thundersheets.
http://soils.missouri.edu/survey/texas.asp
If you have deep soils, then you would have a greater choice of shrubs and trees.
Thanks bettydee, another good source of info. This screen is going to be on top of a hill where it is mostly rock so DH was planning on taking his trencher and digging up some space to fill some good dirt into. However, natives would certainly do better overall, probably. I'll sure keep that in mind.
A&M Research has confirmed that cedar taproots seek a water source in the water table and will deplete the water supply for other trees...consider carefully before you plant cedar....
You could consider sweet olive, natchez crepe myrtles, or vitex as the upper screen...rosemary, turkscap, or silver beargrass as the understory...if there is support, you may look at lady banksia or the historic new dawn rose climbers...both are super hard and the new dawn will cover ANYTHING quickly...
Wow, that is good to know about cedar. You can really tell that the other trees surrounded by the cedar are not very healthy. That's one reason DH cleared so many out (in addition to just not liking cedar). We assumed the other trees were just not getting enough light, but not having access to the water would sure make them weak, too! I do like Vitex and bought a couple this weekend. I will look all of those up and see how they might do out there. Unfortunately, DH informed me last night that he doesn't want to build a support, so climbers are out of the question. That's ok! We will figure out something that we will like! Thanks txaggiegal.
Cherry Laurel is on the list of deer resistant plants, and I don't know if you are aware but Vitex is on the Texas Invasives list;
http://www.texasinvasives.org/invasives_database/detail.php?symbol=VIAG
Thanks Josephine, as I was looking up the vitex I saw your post about that. Do you know if it is invasive via seeds or roots? I'll look up Cherry Laurel.
Butterfly bush makes a pretty good screen in our yard. And it stays mostly green all winter here in Boerne. I will try to remember to take a picture tonight for you. Ours took a couple of years to get this big though. We have pruned it back the last few years every spring. (and a couple of times in the fall when it was just tooo ungangly)
Tonya, I believe it is the seeds, it makes tons of them.
I had a couple of butterfly bushes in a past house and really liked them. Bought one of those this weekend, too. There was a nursery near Bastrop that is going out of business, so I made a trip over there and picked up some good buys. I'll have to read up on it and see if it fits my criteria for this spot! I look forward to seeing your picture.
Ok. Thanks Josephine. If it was roots, I figured that the almost solid rock up there would help keep it contained!
I have a little dirt but underneath it is all rock. Hill country ya know.... we grow rocks here instead of plants!
I've seen the posting on vitex being invasive....strange because I have growing them for 30 years and have very few seedlings from the 3 mature trees...mine are species, not hybrids, but it does seem strange. Perhaps it is invasive in an area that gets rain and doesn't have a lot of limestone and maybe even had dirt?! LOL
"Cedars" shouldn't be lumped into the same nuisance category.
What we generally call cedars here in Texas are really junipers. Juniperus scopulorum, known by various names (Western Red Cedar, Rocky Mountain Red Cedar, Mountain Red Cedar, Colorado Red Cedar, Western Red Cedar, River Juniper, Western Juniper, Cedro Rojo). It is drought tolerant and at lower elevations, it shouldn't cause invasion problems.
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/ornamentals/natives/juniperusscopulorum.htm
There are other “cedars” that wouldn’t be invasive,, but they wouldn’t meet your requirement of fast growth.
Here are some websites that might be useful in making your choices.
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/ornamentals/natives/indexcommon.htm
http://www.saws.org/conservation/watersaverlane/hillcountry.shtml
http://texastreeplanting.tamu.edu/ViewAllTrees.aspx
http://www.hillcountryhome.com/a1pub/article_590.shtml
http://www.wildflower.org/shop/detailview_new.php?id=246
http://www.npsot.org/Kerrville/trees.htm
http://www.npsot.org/Kerrville/NPSOT_Blue Brochure.pdf
Excellent, Bettydee...and Love that you use NPSOT!
Thank you, txaggiegal. I'm having a devil of a time getting all the information in a post before I get dropped off the Internet. We've had that problem for quite a while so sometimes I need to transfer the information onto Word. In the process I lost part of the last link. Here's a link to the Homepage:
http://www.npsot.org/Kerrville/index.htm
Vitex maybe doesn't spread like, um, kudzu, but when it's established, it out competes some slower-growing natives. So maybe you wouldn't want to run out and pull a fabulous specimen out of your lawn, but maybe if you were planting from scratch in an undeveloped area, that's not the one you would choose.
More great info, thanks everybody!