How to Grow Privacy Shrubs
Last updated August 21, 2024
Defining garden rooms or creating a private area in your landscape can be as simple as planting a few shrubs. You can create a sound barrier from street or neighbor noise, provide a wind break from harsh winds, define a walkway through your garden, or use it as a living fence.
The trick to keeping it simple is to use shrubs that need little maintenance and will not outgrow the space.
Read the label to find out how tall and how wide they will grow, so you don’t have to prune or move them later. Ask your Garden Center associate which evergreens are best for your area.
To create a tall barrier, choose evergreens such as ‘Emerald Green’ arborvitae, broadleaf holly, columnar junipers or cypress.
Mid-size evergreen shrubs to define a space would be dwarf cryptomeria, camellias or yews.
A few short shrubs to consider for along walkways or to define a small garden area would be Korean boxwoods, Japanese holly or dwarf arborvitae ‘Little Giant.’
Table of Contents
Grow Natural Evergreen Fences:
Grow Natural Evergreen Fences:
- Measure the perimeter of the area you want to enclose or screen.
- Create a straight line by hammering a stake at each end of the planting area and tying a string to each stake.
- Create a curved line by laying out a garden hose to define the line where you will plant. Spray the outline with landscape paint.
- Mark along the string or garden hose to show where you will plant your shrubs. Determine spacing by the mature width of the plant as defined on the label. For example, if the shrub will mature to 3”-4” in width, plant the shrubs 3” apart.
- Water the shrubs to saturate the root balls before planting.
- Dig a hole as deep as the root ball and twice as wide for each plant.
- Fill the hole with water and allow to seep in.
- Loosen the soil around the root ball and center shrub in the hole with the best side facing forward.
- Backfill the hole with soil and make sure the shrub is straight. Keep soil level with the top of the rootball.
- Water weekly for the first few months to establish good growth.
- Feed shrubs once a year with an acid-based fertilizer such as Holly-tone.
