Best screening plants for 4m tall eventual height?

greensalad

getmore4less said:

greensalad said:

My neighbours have unfortunately been decimating every living thing in their garden for the past few months. What was, when we moved in, a gorgeous selection of mature shrubs on the boundary including very mature acers, rhododendrons and more has been completely removed. The result is instead of the lovely privacy we once had a view directly into the entire of their garden, including into all their house windows. I absolutely hate it and am honestly devastated they've destroyed pretty much the entire of their garden but I guess they are allowed to so...

What can I do to put it back up, on our side? We haven't really done any planting in our garden yet since moving in. I would like something with an eventual height of 4m as this will give us back the old view we had, where all the buildings on that side of the fence are obscured from our garden and we can only see the forest treeline in the distance, which gave the appearance that we were very much "alone" despite having neighbours on this back boundary.

We already have some common laurel down one side, planted by the previous owners. I am considering that again but wondering if there's anything else. We don't want anything too deep, as it would be taking up most of our boundary beds which currently have shrubs in. So looking for something that will give dense coverage without growing too deep. 

When they started ripping out did you not think of asking for them to replant on your side as you u liked them so much, some might have survived.

Maybe they wanted their garden back as they would have been taking up a lot of space..

 

By the time I realised what they were doing they had already been hacked to bits with a chainsaw.

Their garden is gigantic. Maybe they did want an extra 4ft or so on their 30ft long garden gleaned back from the hedge. I suspect their plan is to add even more grey outbuildings as they already have a bunch of them and seem to love putting them up right on the boundary.

getmore4less

greensalad said:

getmore4less said:

greensalad said:

My neighbours have unfortunately been decimating every living thing in their garden for the past few months. What was, when we moved in, a gorgeous selection of mature shrubs on the boundary including very mature acers, rhododendrons and more has been completely removed. The result is instead of the lovely privacy we once had a view directly into the entire of their garden, including into all their house windows. I absolutely hate it and am honestly devastated they've destroyed pretty much the entire of their garden but I guess they are allowed to so...

What can I do to put it back up, on our side? We haven't really done any planting in our garden yet since moving in. I would like something with an eventual height of 4m as this will give us back the old view we had, where all the buildings on that side of the fence are obscured from our garden and we can only see the forest treeline in the distance, which gave the appearance that we were very much "alone" despite having neighbours on this back boundary.

We already have some common laurel down one side, planted by the previous owners. I am considering that again but wondering if there's anything else. We don't want anything too deep, as it would be taking up most of our boundary beds which currently have shrubs in. So looking for something that will give dense coverage without growing too deep. 

When they started ripping out did you not think of asking for them to replant on your side as you u liked them so much, some might have survived.

Maybe they wanted their garden back as they would have been taking up a lot of space..

 

By the time I realised what they were doing they had already been hacked to bits with a chainsaw.

Their garden is gigantic. Maybe they did want an extra 4ft or so on their 30ft long garden gleaned back from the hedge. I suspect their plan is to add even more grey outbuildings as they already have a bunch of them and seem to love putting them up right on the boundary.

Check they meet the regulations if right on the boundary.

greensalad

getmore4less said:

greensalad said:

getmore4less said:

greensalad said:

My neighbours have unfortunately been decimating every living thing in their garden for the past few months. What was, when we moved in, a gorgeous selection of mature shrubs on the boundary including very mature acers, rhododendrons and more has been completely removed. The result is instead of the lovely privacy we once had a view directly into the entire of their garden, including into all their house windows. I absolutely hate it and am honestly devastated they've destroyed pretty much the entire of their garden but I guess they are allowed to so...

What can I do to put it back up, on our side? We haven't really done any planting in our garden yet since moving in. I would like something with an eventual height of 4m as this will give us back the old view we had, where all the buildings on that side of the fence are obscured from our garden and we can only see the forest treeline in the distance, which gave the appearance that we were very much "alone" despite having neighbours on this back boundary.

We already have some common laurel down one side, planted by the previous owners. I am considering that again but wondering if there's anything else. We don't want anything too deep, as it would be taking up most of our boundary beds which currently have shrubs in. So looking for something that will give dense coverage without growing too deep. 

When they started ripping out did you not think of asking for them to replant on your side as you u liked them so much, some might have survived.

Maybe they wanted their garden back as they would have been taking up a lot of space..

 

By the time I realised what they were doing they had already been hacked to bits with a chainsaw.

Their garden is gigantic. Maybe they did want an extra 4ft or so on their 30ft long garden gleaned back from the hedge. I suspect their plan is to add even more grey outbuildings as they already have a bunch of them and seem to love putting them up right on the boundary.

Check they meet the regulations if right on the boundary.

Technically it doesn't because they have an aerial hanging over into my garden, I haven't measured the building but looks around 1m which is acceptable I believe. However it's something I'd rather just cover up with a new hedge instead of becoming their enemy so early on in moving here. They cannot blame me for putting up plants in my garden and I can't blame them for wanting more outbuildings, even if I don't like it myself!

onomatopoeia99

getmore4less said:

greensalad said:

getmore4less said:

greensalad said:

My neighbours have unfortunately been decimating every living thing in their garden for the past few months. What was, when we moved in, a gorgeous selection of mature shrubs on the boundary including very mature acers, rhododendrons and more has been completely removed. The result is instead of the lovely privacy we once had a view directly into the entire of their garden, including into all their house windows. I absolutely hate it and am honestly devastated they've destroyed pretty much the entire of their garden but I guess they are allowed to so...

What can I do to put it back up, on our side? We haven't really done any planting in our garden yet since moving in. I would like something with an eventual height of 4m as this will give us back the old view we had, where all the buildings on that side of the fence are obscured from our garden and we can only see the forest treeline in the distance, which gave the appearance that we were very much "alone" despite having neighbours on this back boundary.

We already have some common laurel down one side, planted by the previous owners. I am considering that again but wondering if there's anything else. We don't want anything too deep, as it would be taking up most of our boundary beds which currently have shrubs in. So looking for something that will give dense coverage without growing too deep. 

When they started ripping out did you not think of asking for them to replant on your side as you u liked them so much, some might have survived.

Maybe they wanted their garden back as they would have been taking up a lot of space..

 

By the time I realised what they were doing they had already been hacked to bits with a chainsaw.

Their garden is gigantic. Maybe they did want an extra 4ft or so on their 30ft long garden gleaned back from the hedge. I suspect their plan is to add even more grey outbuildings as they already have a bunch of them and seem to love putting them up right on the boundary.

Check they meet the regulations if right on the boundary.

You an build 15 square meters next to the boundary without building regs, double that if substantially non-combustible.  So potentially no regulations to comply with.

Bendy_House

Height. Planning can be quite strict on this.

Greensalad seems pragmatic, tho', and is not fixated about nailing these folk down. When GS's trees grow, the neighb's will have all the fun they could want climbing on to their many outbuildings to trim the trees...

kdotdotdotdot

There was a trend a year or so ago of multicoloured hedges, made up from different hedging plants that flower in different colours.  I know it was a bit of a cheat, because the hedges didn't flower at the same time, so you'd never get the true multicolour effect shown in the photos in real life, but I'd still recommend googling it and taking a look.

Please don't get talked into buying bamboo - they will indeed give you the height you want, but can be an absolute nightmare.  Bamboo comes in two 'types': clumping and running.  Gardening shops will sell you bamboo and tell you it's clumping but then it turns out not to be.  The names refer to the behaviour of the roots: clumping bamboo is supposed to do just that: clump together (although it still needs to be planted surrounded by a plant membrane and checked each year that the roots haven't breached the membrane). Running bamboo however is a disaster: the roots 'run' meters away from the parent plant, creating new bamboo plants that send out their own root systems, in turn creating new plants.  The roots are strong and will grow through concrete, through tarmac pathways, even through foundations - and as it's a grass, cutting the bamboo back does nothing to stop it growing.  A lot of it is resistant to weed killer too.  My neighbour had planted bamboo along his fence by my property and I had to pay ££ to get at least 100 metres of roots and plants dug up out of my side of the garden. My neighbour spent goodness knows how much having to have his entire paved back garden dug up and new stones to be laid to remove the roots underneath.  We're still pulling up bamboo plants that survived the purge more than a year later.

I would be tempted to plant fruit trees: quince, crab-apple.  If you don't want the fruit, the birds will be happy for it and the spring flowers are beautiful and a boon to insects.  Japanese acers give glorious colours in the autumn and usually don't grow too tall.

liberty_lily

Otoh, bamboos in very large planters or troughs would be fine imho 😉 I'd still always advise to go for clump forming though....

In our current rural garden - which once formed part of the grounds of an historic mansion till the gardens were split up and sold (in our case with a former agricultural building later converted to a house) - we have a couple of fairly big bamboo clumps that obviously date back very many years (approaching 100 at a guess) that haven't increased in size in the five years we've owned the property and there are no signs of the roots running and sprouting elsewhere. So that definitely must be non-clump forming and (again, imho) absolutely nothing to worry about. 

However, in the OP's case, I'd agree that something like pleached Hornbeam would probably be the best choice.

Acers are very attractive but medium-large ones are expensive and AFAIK they can be fairly slow growing so you'd need to buy decent sized specimens to start with. We've got one here that's approximately 25' high...I can't imagine how much one that size would cost!

kdotdotdotdot

Oh yes, I agree that bamboo is a beautiful plant, and if you get the right one, gives little trouble. I just wanted to highlight the issues with bamboo if you don't know what you're doing and buy the wrong type.  It's available to buy so cheaply but with no information about what sort of bamboo it is, that it's easy to give yourself a world of pain.

greensalad

I am not keen on bamboo, doesn't suit my style so much and I'd prefer something that gives a bit of a foresty look to blend with the treeline. Pleached hornbeam does look lovely. Currently I'm considering a mix I think, to give it a more natural appearance.