Our gajillion-year-old unmaintained hedge needs to go. It’s all gnarley and full of bare, dead spots (which I have been cutting out each summer for the past few years).
Here’s my situation: the house is about 20 feet from our busy road. We get a lot of traffic, including trucks. It is pretty noisy – to the point that it’s difficult to hear the TV sometimes when the windows are open. We’re too close to the road to do a berm, and a sound barrier wall is financially out of reach.
So…we want to replace the ugly-and-ineffective hedge and replace it with something dense (preferably not evergreen, though I’ll acquiesce to that if I must), something that doesn’t get much over 6’ tall, and flowering, if possible. We’d like a fast-grower, as well, because we are a little paranoid about the traffic and the possibility that a car just might careen through our living room.
Can anyone share your experiences with Growing Things As Sound Barrier?
Arbor Vitae (sp?) would work, but it is an evergreen (and, I believe, are ugly, but I think all evergreens are ugly), but it meets your criteria of relatively fast growing and dense. I do believe you’d have to work to keep them at six feet also. So even though it doesn’t meet all your needs, there it is. I am sure someone else will have better ideas.
Keep in mind that “evergreen” doesn’t necessarily mean conifers (which I also don’t care for) – you can also grow rhododendrons or azaleas (shade) or holly (sun), all of which are evergreens.
If you don’t care about winter blockage (you’re inside with the windows closed?), consider hibiscus (rose of sharon), which has gorgeous showy flowers all summer for sun, or oakleaf hydrangeas for shade – huge white flowers that turn to cream as the summer proceeds, big dark green leaves that turn maroon in the fall, and twisty limbs with peeling bark for winter interest. These both drop their leaves in winter.
Thanks for the suggestion. Actually, Mr. K and I decided we would do a yearly trimming if we had one that grows very tall. I wasn’t sure that was “ok” to do. I don’t want them to look all lopped off and dorky. Sounds like it might work!
My immediate thought was arborvitae for the “sound-proofing” aspect of what you are looking for. Arborvitae can be trimmed neatly, and look quite nice, but they are evergreens as mentioned above.
Dwarf White pines are very nice, not bristly and easy on the eye - they get about 7 foot tall max and require little maintenance.
The rhododendrons are beautiful! That’s exactly what I had in mind, especially if it doesn’t drop it’s leaves. We want to get fairly mature plants (due to the careening car potential). Do they grow quickly?
These guys will have more sun on the road side than on the house side. The hedge will run north-south, but the house will block the inside (there is only maybe 10 feet between the hedge and the house).
It sounds like you are set on getting rid of your existing hedge, but I just wanted to make sure you know that hedges can often be rejuvenated by razing them to the ground and letting them grow up again before you go to all this work. They look brand new after getting this treatment (you gotta love plants that thrive on getting cut right off. ) If you were thinking of selling in a couple of years, I’d go this route rather than replacing an existing hedge.
Barberries make a lovely hedge, too, if you want to discourage people from messing with them (they have massive thorns on them). My concern about a rhodo hedge is that they can be kinda fussy to grow. Depending on where you live, you could have a yew hedge - I’ve seen people recommend them here before. Lilacs also make a nice hedge - you can get shorter varieties that don’t need pruning.
We would love to get a really effective barrier, but our space situation doesn’t warrant it. There’s not enough space between the house and the road and we just can’t afford it.
What are other people on your street doing? In many ways, that’s the best test for what works well in your area.
You might also try sound-proofing your house a little: put your bookcases on the outside walls, I don’t know if you want to mess with the windowns or not.
Do you know what type of hedge it is? If it’s a type that can be rejuvenated that way, I’d say just get out the chainsaw. I’ve seen this done with cotoneaster, nanking cherries, and viburnums; they come back so healthy it’s like they’re saying, “Thanks! We needed that break.”
Well, we don’t really have much to compare it with. It is a rural area. The others are either set way back from the road or the don’t have any sort of hedge. Back in the day, I guess our property line was out to where the center line is now.
We replaced the windows a few years ago and it is definitely improved over what it was, but it’s still not great. We spent what we could afford, and they are a huge improvement in fit, etc. But we aren’t able to buy something that would block it out altogether.
I love the bookcase idea, but unfortunately, our little old farmhouse has no space for them. We have our couch up against the front door, about 15 in of wall, window, and then another 15 in of wall.
Are the leaves small and turn bright red in fall? If you have a cotoneaster hedge, you can certainly rejuvenate it (the gnarly, dead spots sure sound like an unmaintained cotoneaster). Do you know what zone you live in? Is it maybe chokeberry, serviceberry, Juneberry or buffaloberry?
We’re in a very similar situation to yours - the house is soundproof enough to keep noise levels manageable indoors, but the back garden doesn’t exactly qualify for “relaxing oasis” status. So we consulted with a few experts, including a friend who happens to specialise in landscape architecture for urban spaces (and who wouldn’t have anything to gain, since he doesn’t live locally anymore and doesn’t do private commissions anyway).
The consistent answer was that to get any significant reduction in noise using vegetation alone, the hedge would have to be at least 10’ deep or supplemented with a berm (which is also not possible with our layout). They did say that there could be a significant reduction in perceived noise just by blocking the view of traffic with a regular-sized hedge, but that it would be entirely psychological.
Bottom line, thick solid fence + hedge is your best bet. We’ll be doing exactly that as soon as our bank accounts recover from the more immediate repairs on the house.
For anyone still following this thread (yeah…I know…it’s a real page-turner), I spent most of the morning with my little reciprocating saw doing the needful to the hedge. I have a couple of gaping holes that we are going to plant something in (and yes! there is tons of sproutage going on within the depths of the evil hedge!). I’m hoping some sunshine and breathing room will bring it back to life.
) If you were thinking of selling in a couple of years, I’d go this route rather than replacing an existing hedge.