Tress and shrubs for windy location

Hi
I have a very exposed garden that is relatively large in size. Our house/garden is at the peak of a hill and gets wind from all sides, normally pretty high winds. I have planted laurel hedges the whole way around the perimeter but these are only 1.5 - 2 ft high at this stage and will take a few more years before they are effective wind breakers.
Not knowing a huge deal about gardening I planted around 10 trees and around 30 shrubs. Most of these now are wind damaged.
The trees are growing but slowly and some look weather beaten, with black marks on their leaves and branches damaged etc.
I was thinking of replacing some of the trees for species that are wind resistant but not sure what trees are suitable.
I need tree species that are hardy and can live in windy conditions. I want trees that look nice also, somethng like silver birch for example.
Does anyone have any suggestions for trees and shrubs?

Many thanks in advance

 

You can buy Silver Birch for less than £1 wips. They will grow to 6ft in 2-3 years in a sunny site, smaller in shade. Eventually they will grow much larger.

Tamarisk is a good wind break and has pinkish flowers in spring.

Hawthorn is another tree that does fine as a wind break.

 

Good afternoon Shane,
to Gardeners Corner. Some conifers are very tough and look good all year round. Many nice shapes and colours too. Just Google "Hardy conifers "-images.
Have you got fine views from your house on a hill?
Jenny namaste

 

If your plot is "large enough" I would plant a windbreak all around the perimeter.

You could choose a combination of fast, short term, and slower medium / long term trees.

You definitely need the windbreak "up" before anything else is going to grow.

I am sure I have know this for years, but we've been here 7 years and planted an area of our (large) garden that only has a few trees for shelter. This is Suffolk, its flat, and is is not really a "windy" site, but it is extraordinary how even a breeze increases the transpiration, and thus stress, on plants.

This year we planted an Exotic garden in a small area of the garden that is heavily shaded, but has a 40' tall Leylandii hedge on side facing the prevailing wind. The speed with which the plants have grown, by comparison to anything else we've ever planted here, is amazing - particularly as the area in question is heavily shaded. It can thus only be the shelter that has made that much difference.

If your site is not very big you may be looking for windbreak trees that are "narrow" in growth, but the view I have taken here (large, but long and narrow site) is to plant things for speed, slightly decided in favour of narrowness, and then rip those out when they have done their job (10 years say) in favour or other longer term, and more suitable / suitably shaped, trees.

You could plant Leylandii along the perimeter, and trim them to a nice clipped hedge (on your side at least) if you wish. They are pretty quick (might achieve 3' per year). You could double-row plant with something like Thuja plicata atrovirens (on the "outside") and then clear-fell the Leylandii once the Thuja is 10' tall, or more. The Thuja will be much more manageable, long term.

But on a windy site I think you need something much taller than a hedge (indeed your laurel, once it has got to 5' or so will romp away and do an excellent job, but it does grow into a rather wide hedge)

So IMO a perimeter planting of trees would give you much more height, and shelter.

There are two trees planted for "speed", either Willow or Poplar "hybrid" - the "hybrid" bit covers a number of varieties, which have been specially bred for speed. They are generally used for coppicing (which you might choose to do if you could use the firewood). Of the two: Willow will grow a very wide set of suckers from the stump, when coppiced, whereas Poplar will be happy growing a single stem (or a couple maybe) and forming a more "Normal" shaped tree. It is still not an "exclamation mark" shaped tree though, so you could consider also something like Lombardy Poplar that is very narrow indeed (but has a good rate of growth); that will be expensive, by comparison, though. Seek out the Poplar Hybrids which are more narrow in shape (I've forgotten the variety names, but there are definitely "narrower" ones available - still not pencil-thin though)

The good news about the Poplar Hybrids are that they are fast (if you can get them to establish quickly you could achieve 12' PER YEAR !! but realistically with your windy site it will be less than that, but you can protect them to speed them up - see below) and they are cheap - 50p each (you just stick them in the ground - they come with no roots - and 90% of them will root. You need to do it soon though, November is the ideal time, the later in the Winter you leave it the less the rooting percentage).

Separate from the initial windbreak requirement I would consider medium to long term trees. My preference for a windbreak would be Monterey Pines (Pinus radiata I think). You could buy cell-grown trees for a quid-a-go, or thereabouts. They will be tiny, of course, but if you are also planting a Poplar Hybrid I don't think that matters. Depends on the length of row you need to plant, and the state of your wallet! You can buy bigger plants, buy conifers are often planted "tiny" because the establish more quickly that larger pot grown plants. In 20-30 years time you could then take the tops out of those trees (30' say) and they would maintain nice bushy "bottoms". A nice alternative would be evergreen Holm Oak - Quercus Ilex - but I don't know how happy that is on a windy site. It has a nice "random" profile, compared to the symetry of things like Poplar and Monetrey pines.

Next up is helping them to grow quickly. I think you have a couple of choices:

You could put a windbreak all around your site. "Paraweb" is the brand of choice. That would cost a fortune, but you would be able to plant the garden whilst waiting for the garden to grow. Its basically a webbing, and an inch wide with a 1/2" gap between each strand; it dramatically reduces the wind speed coming through it, and most of the wind has to go over the top. As such it needs very substantial posts to keep in place when the wind is blowing hard!!

You could do a poor-man's alternative, but that depends a bit on what height you think you need. This would be using Scaffolder's Debris Netting (the stuff on building sites that stops builders accidentally dropping something "over the side" of the scaffolding). If you have a sky scraper being built near you have a word with the foreman - it is usually "junked" after use. (Any building site will do, but maybe you need a lot?). Its not expensive to buy. However, the posts you attach it to have got to be able to withstand the strength of the wind blowing on the Debris Netting, and that will increase the taller you want the windbreak to be - old telegraph poles would be a good choice for anything tall ... obviously it would be quite a lot of effort to erect them. For a height of only 6' you'll get away with smaller posts, but that's only going to protect the plants right next to the netting, whereas a height of 10', or more, will protect things further from the netting (I think the formula is that things up to a distance equal to 3 or 4 times the height of the windbreak benefit - Google will have the correct answer to that one!). By comparison I would expect a Paraweb type windbreak to be installed to a height of 15' - 20'

For individual plants I use plastic layflat-tubing (clear plastic). It comes on a roll and you can cut off a length of 1-2M and put it around each plant with 3 bamboo canes and maybe some staples to "crimp" the plastic around the canes so it doesn't sag. The stuff I have is about 1.5M wide (so opened out it makes a tube of about 0.5M Diameter). Plastic isn't exactly cheap these days, and you do need a reasonable thickness otherwise it will just degrade in the sunlight ... but it makes a HUGE different IME giving each plant its own mini greenhouse (the top is open, so all it is doing is preventing any breeze from increasing the transpiration of the plant). You could do that around each individual plant to help them get established - including any Shrubs etc that you are planting as "ornamentals", i.e. in addition to trees for windbreak

 

Lay flat tubing example:
http://www.transpack.co.uk/clear-heavy-duty-lay-flat-tubing

Article on Hybrid Willows (shop around before buying, nice as these folk are I don't think they have much choice of varieties)
http://mammothwillow.co.uk/store/index.php?main_page=page&id=5

 

Holm Oak does not do that well in windy sites Kristen. Sheltered, sunny spots and it roars in height, but exposed windy sites and it looks battered.

 

Thanks Salamander, I did have my doubts - I wonder if it would manage if part of a shelter belt with others? probably a daft idea, and better to choose some things that will grow up, rather than sideways!, faced with a windy site. But I still think Holm Oak has a nice shape. Mine you ... so did Elm, and that's gone the way of all flesh :(

 

Holm Oaks are great trees and I have seen them down as wind break trees online, but they do not have the strongest of branches and look wind swept in exposed sites and prone to die back. They also lose their leaves after in cold winter winds and it takes ages for them to grow back...like 6-8 months. You did remind me of Scots Pine is tough as, and as part of the shelter belt mixed with deciduous trees could work well. I like their shapes and light shade.

Another shelter belt tree is Field Maple. The ones round here are red at the moment (full sun), mine are yellow (north facing) and a good fast growing shrub/tree. Mixed with Hawthorn, Birch, Tamarisk, Holly and even Berberis and Cotoneaster then that would be pretty and useful.

 

I did think of Scots Pines. Scraggy things, with a character all of their own , but I think they are rather "thin crown" once they get up there? Maybe that's many years' hence and would be fine in the meantime?

I don't think the others in your list are fast enough, although they would be great for the "second wave"