Adding a Green Screen Between Properties–No CG required

Every yard (at least that I know of) has its more utilitarian parts that tend not to be very attractive. For our neighbor and for us, we have a lot of trailers parked (conveniently, right next to each other), with a really tall retaining wall between our properties where I hate to mow the grass. I used to have forsythia at the farm–a huge drift of 40 bushes–that was such a welcome sight on those early spring days when nothing else was awake yet.

I love forsythias in the spring, but they tend to be a little gangly and not my favorite foundation shrub, but this screening project is the perfect application for them because they grown fast, to about 8 ft tall and 8 ft wide, and since I am planting them pretty close together, they will make a nice thick screen during the parts of the year when we really need it.

Here’s what I am trying to hide:

The photo on the far right is what our neighbor sees. Right now it’s only the utility trailer and the boat trailer, but in the summer, the jet ski trailers are there too. It looks pretty junky.

We had some gorgeous weather this past week, so I laid out where I wanted to plant the forsythia. My “Living Fences” reference book recommends a spacing of 2 to 4 feet, so I settled on 3 feet. I marked them 4 feet from the inside edge of the top of the wall and 3 feet apart. In the corner, I did 3 extra rows to give us a nice rounded inside corner that will be easy to mow. I ordered the forsythia from Musser Forests in Indiana, PA back in early February. The bushes won’t be big, but you can’t beat the price ($2.70/each for 10 and $2.10/each for 25. I had originally thought I would only need 10, but after laying them out, I need at least 20. I looked at it again this morning and I am going to increase my order to 25 to fill all the holes and do a double row everywhere and get a price break on all of them–5 more holes to dig.

As soon as we have several dry days in a row, I will mark the outline of the drift with marking paint and spray everything between the wall and line with weed and grass killer.

I’m going to make the bed slightly larger than absolutely necessary so that I can plant a bunch of narcissus along the front edge. Daffodils are another thing I miss from the farm where I had thousands of them and the various varieties had us in flowers all spring. I will order a mixture from Van Engelen in the fall. They have the best bulbs around.

I will update when we get it finished.