privacy trees for wet area in georgia

does anyone have suggestions for a line of trees that are evergreen that thrive in or tolerate areas? I thought hemlock might work but i think they might need more shade. I am planning on putting a line of something evergreen, then river birch and then some maples as the land gets a ltttle less wet. any suggestions will be greatly appreciated! we have about 85 feet to cover

Thuja plicata and Chamaecyparis thyoides come to mind first.

hmm.. i love Chamaecyparis, i thought i saw some yellowish colored ones this year that might look good with maples. Do they all do well in wet areas?

Just the thyoides do well in wet areas, not other Chamaecyparis. I can't attest to how these grow in your area, but Thuja occidentalis or Arborvitae can supposedly take flooding but won't get big enough for a while. I am also not sure whether the claims I sometimes see about Thuja 'Green Giant' taking wet soils is true or not. Whatever you do, don't shade the evergreens with the deciduous stuff.

Willis

Depending on whether you are talking about continuously standing water; seasonally wet; or just a drainage area where water passes through after a rain...there are multiple answers. Give us a few more clues, and maybe a picture or two to illustrate your site.

A broadleaf evergreen could be a solution as well. Magnolia virginiana var. australis will be reliably evergreen for you, and there are a number of very nice named clones of sweetbay magnolia being sold today that are pretty rapid growers.

Look for 'Moonglow', 'Green Shadow', 'Henry Hicks', and others if shiny dark green leaves year round with lemony fragrant May/June flowers on a single or multistem large shrub/small tree suits you.

Need for it to be evergreen wipes out all my favorites, notably baldcypress, dawn redwood, and elderberry. How wet it gets and for how long is, yeah, another factor. I have Ilex vomitorium (yaupon) doing well in soil that is wet seasonally but can also dry out from time to time (as it has now, with the usual late-winter drought extending into spring and being worse than usual); I'm not sure how well the native hollies in general tolerate the wet. Live oak and laurel oak are evergreen -- mostly -- and grow faster than people think; here both tolerate a lot of wet, but live oak gets huge over time, and laurel oak dies young (rarely makes it over age 70, starts losing limbs first; some cities around here planted a mess of them about that long ago as street trees and now they are dying of old age, with dead limbs dropping as they rot).

Loblolly pine also stands really soggy clay soils here. But maybe all these suggestions have the wrong shape and profile... although yaupon can be clipped into an attractive hedge of dense growth. (Who want to clip hedges, though? Not I.)

Mark., the yaupons SPRAWL where I planted them

Osmanthus americanus (Devilwood) also can stand wet conditions. Mine has grown quickly and I think they top out around 30ft.