Peeping Toms....

There are a couple reasons for this post, one important reason is that our builder placed these homes sooo close together that people can easily see right in our living room, dining room and also our office. Makes midnight kitchen runs a little bit dangerous- but even more annoying is that three different homes look right out onto our deck and quite frankly, I'd like a little privacy even if it is artificial...so I'm planting some privacy trees.

I had a date with the local nursery owner today, and here are the options:

The Emerald Green Thuja, this tree grows from 8-12 ft. high and are three feet wide, so I could plant four on our fence. From what I can tell, it's a pretty healthy tree. This is a great option, except I don't know if 8 or even 12 feet is high enough, this might be a better option for our front flower bed.

This next one is called the Nellie Stevens Holly they grow to be 15-25 feet and are pretty risiliant. I could plant one, maybe two of these. These are also pretty affordable

This is the Lombardy Poplar. These grow really fast, like 6 feet in one year. They are the cheapest option. Apparently these are horticulture people's worse nightmare.

They have a tendency to mess up underground water sources (like if there is a leaky pipe, it will totally leech onto it and mess it up) and they definitely rot in less than 20 years... but I'm not sure I care about that, seeing as we aren't going to be here that long and I'd like a tree that grows pretty fast...? These can easily grow to be 50 feet, or even higher. I could plant one, maybe two?


Here we have the American Holly... these have won multiple awards for being resistant (great, because I tend to kill things) but they do not grow fast and they do require hedging... it is pretty though. They grow to 20-30 feet.



This last one is my favorite, the Italian Cypress. It grows to be 40 ft (or less if you trim them) they are about 5 ft wide, so I could plant three. They are a very classy tree, and I think they are the most expensive of the bunch. They grow at a moderate pace- and they're nice and healthy. Apparently all the "new, high-end homes" have these... to that I say, "Oh, all the ones in foreclosure?"



So tell me, what do you think?