Saturday, June 2, 2012

House Project: Privacy

We knew that we would like a private backyard before even looking at houses.  When we put in the offer on the house, we know a private backyard would be a lot of work.  The property is in the shape of a triangle, with an elevated road running along the hypotenuse.  The entire back yard is visible around both sides of the house.

Our initial idea was a regular privacy fence.  We found a good deal on panels that would make the fence 8 feet high, and constructed a small section to test them out.  The test was successful, but I couldn't get over the feeling of how tacky a big fence would be.

We decided that plants would be better.  After a lot of research, our best bet was to try some (40) of these:


They were all planted more than a year ago.  Here's what we got so far:


It doesn't quite match the ad, but this is Wisconsin after all.  Plants don't thrive in Wisconsin -- they survive.  And these have a long way to go before they block the view from the road (which is on the horizon in the picture).

Blocking the view from the other direction was much quicker.  It was a bit expensive, but after planting, it fully grew within a couple of months!



4 comments:

Merida said...

Any luck with the plants? My Fiance and I are hoping to eventually have a private backyard and I'm interested to hear how things are going for you.

Academic Naturist said...

As-of right now... Let's just say that if I stand naked behind the biggest one, I'd get arrested. The drought we've had this summer really didn't help. (Our area was hit especially bad.) Normally, they should "take off" after about 3 years. It's only been 1.5 years since we planted them.

Thomas Alan Edwards said...

Any updates on the planting after 3 years? Doing the same thing to our yard, and have looked into green giant arbor vitae (people seem to have pretty good success, but don't expect the growth rate often advertised). We've lined the lot lines with spruce and pine, should be quite private by the time I'm retired (lol). Miss your posts, especially resort visits.

Academic Naturist said...

Sorry for the late response. Those trees are crap. (For our area anyway.) Only a couple have survived through the last couple of winters, and they still haven't grown much.