Windbreak trees/shrubs for wind tunnel garden

Floozie

I live in Cumbria which has had a lot of rain recently, although where I live it seems to be permanently raining. I live on a hillside which is exposed to a lot of wind and consequently my garden suffers with pots on my patio being blown over and plants that I try to use as a windbreak such as bamboos being blown over or the leaves scorched at the tips due to their exposure to the gales. Does anyone have any suggestions about plants that I could maybe put on the patio or plants that I can put against the wooden fence panels that are not too wide that can stand exposure to gusty conditions? I have had to take down some conifer trees which were near the fences as they became too tall and unmanageable.

DaftyDuck

I'm no expert on Northern plants, so I'll leave that to others.

For pots that get blown over, I do have a solution. Get a stake that's about six to ten inches longer than the pot. Plant the pot up, then drive the stake straight through the planted pot, top to bottom, and out of the hole in the base. (If it's a difficult-to-find hole, insert it from the bottom). Drive the stake straight into the soil.

If pot is on a patio, there are two similar solutions. One is to drill a suitable hole for the stake, and do as above. the other is to use a plank or board to stand the pots on, and use a double-ended screw fixed at the end, or broom-handle screw threads (you can buy them on ebay) on the ends of the pots to fix to the plank.

I_have_spoken

>plants that I can put against the wooden fence panels <

Ironically, wooden fencing may be making the problem worse be creating eddies and turbulence. Try replacing the fencing with mesh that filters the wind behind which plant your permanent wind-break using plants such as hawthorn, laurel, rosa rugosa, elaeagnus etc.

Davesnave

I agree that the fence is probably not helping much. In windy places, hit & miss fencing that mimics the filtering effect of hedging is to be preferred. A hit & miss fence with hedging behind is even better.

For my windbreak hedges, I use yew and beech, the latter in a double row and trimmed to about 2m. My wife, who does the trimming, hasn't agreed a yew height yet, but I think that might go to 3m before she stops it.

We also have an elm hedge, but that one's a cheat, as it's probably 100 years old.

I know yew is supposed to be slow, but ours has only been in 5 years from 30 - 40 cm plants and it'salready taller than me. The problem with anything which grows really fast is that it doesn't know when to stop, as you've discovered.

DaftyDuck

OK, I'll add a few more shrubs that'll act as windbreaks, and grow in damp, windy conditions. Northern, I'm less sure of, as North Yorkshire is as far North as I've gardened, and that was a south-facing sheltered garden.

But try laurel, rhododendron and azalea. Laurel is quite able to tolerate wet roots. It can be clipped into a dense hedge (use shears and try not to slice leaves, or it looks ugly) and is fast growing. It's fully evergreen, so will give winter shelter. Rhododendron and azalea are less damp tolerant, and make less good windbreak, but are worth a shot. Obviously willows are pretty much able to grow submerged (mine do!), and they grow fast. Birch will also grow in the damp.

Rather than rigid bamboo, you may find more success with the larger, more bendy grasses, like tall Pampas, Cortaderia and Miscanthus varieties. They aren't so keen for damp roots, but may cope fine if you dig even a little gravel in.

I do agree with the wise posters above; a solid fence may cause more wind turbulence than the cover it gives. Problem is; who is willing to find out by removing a fence, and then finding out it was giving protection...

RAS

It may be worth reading Hovel in the Hills; she describes developing wind breaks for a garden at 1000 foot in Wales on a bare hill side.

matchboxfull

I'm no gardener, but our hebes do fine in our very windy front garden.

sgun

I also use yew and beech but they aren't thin hedges so not suitable for you I think. At Harlow Carr they have a few willow hedges that are kept pruned to fence thickness. They are thriving in the cold and wet (HC is usually a couple of degrees colder than here in the northeast) You can let them thicken up a bit further down than they have done here.

[Deleted User]

Hello,

I am also in the north, but on the other side of the country.

I also live in a rural area and where I live can get very, very windy. I once went to work as an owner of a greenhouse. By the time I got home the greenhouse was gone (the metal was sheared in two in places - I just had the base left and lots of broken glass) and the local farmer was now the owner of a mangled greenhouse.

In the worst area of the garden I grow 'tough as old boots' type plants. The following have done really well and have coped with being damanged, heavily pruned and still survived:

- goat willow
- lavatera
- buddleia
- flowering current
- laurel
- honeysuckle

All of these plants have had some major damage and survived. In the lee of these plants I have been able to grow roses, iris and more delicate plants that would otherwise have died.

Also, if you can more your tubs easily they are not heavy enough. All my tubs are so big that we need to have two people and a sack truck to move them. The same with garden furniture - if we can lift it easily then it is too light and some items are tethered down too.

[Deleted User]

Just had another thought. How about privet?

We have a privet hedge on one side of the garden. (sparrows and wrens nest in it every year). On the other side of the garden, directly in the area of the wind tunnel section, I have just one variagated privet bush (a nesting area for blackbirds).

This bush has now grown to about upper chest height and it would take 2-3 peoples' arms to span the widest part. I have shaped the bush into a large topiary ball to make it look more intesting. This has no problem with the winds and provides shelter for a seating area too.

It looks a bit like these:

http://www.scgardening.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Copy-of-2012-June-July-053.jpg

Our hawthorn / blackthorn hedge at the front also copes very well as does a holly tree (it was a bush, but it is now a three-stemmed tree which I have just had pleached and looks amazing).

For plants how about growing things that are not above ground when the winds are at the strongest?

I have an arch over the front entrance to the garden (the beginning of the wind tunnel). Every summer I have the most amazing purple clematis flowers growing over the arch. It is the type of clematis that dies back during the winter and grows again from new growth each year. So during the worst winds in Autumn and Winter it is protected at ground level and it only grows once the winds have died down during the spring and summer.