attractive evergreen tree?

[homebird]

We live in the city and are looking for an evergreen tree to give us some privacy from the house behind us. Most nice trees are deciduous as far as I can see. We would be looking at buying something which is fairly mature, so that we don't have to wait years for it to grow. Any ideas? I checked the key post on trees and didn't see any thing relating directly to evergreen trees - except those posters trying to get rid of the dreaded leylandii.

 

[Sue Ellen]

Try asking the question [broken link removed] also.

 

[angela59]

Hi homebird,

Is it just one tree you are looking for or a hedge. There are loads of lovely evergreen ornamental trees you could buy - however if you are looking for mature trees - they cost. One example is a weeping deodara grows to about 16feet. I don't know what part of the country you are in but if you go to a good garden centre they can advise you. The arboretum is a very good garden centre on the carlow kilkenny road and Rachel Doyle who writes in the garden section of the sunday independent owns it. I have alot of these type of trees in my garden and they are very hardy and lovely in the winter. For a mature tree you could be talking anything up to E500. I do remember there is some nursery up around Laois that sells mature trees. Sky rockets are also another evergreen ornamental tree that are narrow but if you plant 2 or 3 about 5 feet apart, they can give you privacy also.

 

[Cheese]

Embothrium is a lovely evergreen, with the most beautiful red flowers in summer, Acacia is also evergreen but quite vigerous and shallow rooted so needs to be cut back regularly, costs about €15. I think the Deodora and SkyRocket recommended by angela59 are conifers, as are the dreaded leylandii. The Deodora is far too big for a city garden, Skyrocket is very tall and narrow and tends to get brown at the end and sides.

 

[angela59]

Hi Cheese,

Yes the Deodara and sky rockets are conifers but are not as bad as the "dreaded leylandi" with reference to sky rockets - have several of them in my garden and no problems with brown at sides or bottom of trees so don't think this is a "common" problem. Yes the deodara would be far too large for a city.

 

[snowdrop]

I would highly recommed a cotoneaster tree (variety cornubia). It is semi-evergreen ie evergreen in mild winters which is most of the time in ireland. There are a couple of varieties depending on how big your garden is and how big you need (also a weeping variety). It has beautiful white flowers carried all down the branches followed by lovely red berries (mine is really gorgeous at the moment) plus the birds love the berries as a source of food during the winter so you're helping wildlife too.