The
post I've been promising! It's finally here! Upon moving in last year, we faced many
challenges with our landscape. I am not a landscaper. I am just a lover of gardening, plants, and all it encompasses. Faced with this new landscape of challenges, we sat stumped for an entire year. This Spring we took the plunge.
When we bought our house, it was the latest house built. The "yard" beyond ours did not have a house yet. We had our hearts set on Leyland Cypress. As the year progressed, we saw our neighboring lot develop, the house be built next to our property line, and our privacy tree idea needing to be revamped.
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| Privacy Trees |
This year we researched Cypress trees all of February and in great earnest all of March. Each weekend in March we drove around to local nurseries pricing screened topsoil, mulch, and trees. In the end we chose Italian Cypress for their small circumference and Green Giant Cypress for their medium circumference.
We fell in love with the idea of Cypress Trees because:
- They have soft bristles: who wants to mow along scratchy leaves?
- They grow 10-30+ feet tall
- They create a great screening
- They block the suns rays from heating the house
- They are low maintenance (no need for trimming!)
- They grow 2-3' a year
- Drought resistant
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| Green Giant |
One problem we ran into was that no one carried Italian Cypress. We found
Trees2go and liked the fact they delivered. Let me tell you, what great service! They worked with our schedule. The trees came in 3 gallon pots. They were delivered right to us. 20 trees in 3 gallon pots at around 2 feet tall came out to $300. They carried Italian Cypress! When they delivered the trees, they not only gave us an instruction pamphlet along with the trees but also gave us tips on planting them, gladly let us know if where we planned to plant the trees would be good place or not, and gave us advice on what to consider. The greatest part is
Trees2go tracks your purchase and you earn cumulative discounts! Happy customers here :)
We followed their advice and spaced the Green Giant and Italian Cypress 6' apart. This allows for the trees to interlace. We shall see in a few years!
Never bury the Cypress tree in clay soil! The roots do not like to sit in water. So well drained soil is key. This is why you see these trees planted in mounds of topsoil and mulch to allow the water to seep below into the clay soil beneath the roots.
To keep the trees in a straight line, put up a string and dig along it. When a slope comes into play, make sure you level it from the top! We wanted a curve to our hedge near the back.
The Green Giant has a circumference of 10-12'. To create a hedge you can plant them up to 8' feet apart. We wanted to mix them with the Italian Cypress that has 6' circumference. This means Italian Cypress need to be spaced 3' apart to create a hedge. We ended up mixing the two trees so that we could plant them 6' apart and cover more ground that way.
A good rule of thumb to follow is always buy a couple more plants than you think you will need. We bought Emerald Arborvitae for the driveway side of the house. Hopefully it will create a nice hedge in place of a fence.
After all we have researched about Cypress the past year, we are pretty excited to observe the results over the years.
