Shelter and Privacy
With Trees and Shrubs
Use landscape trees and shrubs to perform more useful purposes than simply beautifying your home, providing you with privacy, shelter, and wind protection.
Shelter Belts and Windbreaks
Trees such as evergreen conifers and dense hedgerow shrubs give effective shelter to exposed home landscapes and protect them from prevailing wind and weather.
Plant a tall hedge of trees or shrubs as a barrier to keep your garden or home sheltered and warm.
As a rule of thumb, a row of trees protects an area behind the hedgerow from wind for a distance five to ten times its own height.
As an example, planting a hedgerow that is 10 feet (3 m) high will protect an area 50–100 feet (15–30 m) downwind.
Good shelter hedgerows should extend on each side about 50 feet (15 m) beyond area they protect. It may seem like more than is needed, but on blustery winter nights you’ll thank the trees’ for their shelter.
Privacy
When privacy is the goal, the same hedges and tree plantings function as barriers to prying eyes. Place island beds of shrubs and trees in strategic spot. They’ll give a bedroom or front window privacy from neighbors or the street.
Keep privacy screens modest in height. They require neither the height nor the width of those intended to block wind and shelter property. At most, maintain them to 8 ft. (2.4 m) tall through regular pruning.
How wide? Privacy screen widths depend on the density of the species. A mature, dense evergreen such as boxwood or privet totally blocks views when hedges are 18–28 in. (45–70 cm) wide. A deciduous hedgerow that loses its foliage in winter should be twice or more as wide.
Regardless of the choice of tree or shrub, position each planting apart at the recommended spacing. Proper spacing keeps the privacy hedge healthy, provides it good light penetration, and allows enough air circulation to reach to the center of the planting.