Planting on top of an earth wall.

tagwex · Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 11:38 pm Post subject:

We will leave it so, gone a long way from salty air! I travel a lot in my work and thought I recognised the area.

dahamsta · Rank attained: Hazel Tree Joined: 15 Apr 2015 Posts: 10

You probably do, I'm just the wrong person to be asking about sporting gods. Smile

Good guy · Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 9:28 am Post subject:

Returning to the subject (Class, pay attention and less chattering please!): the planting distance you use will depend on the rate of lateral growth of the tree. Suppliers will quote "approx height and spread in ten years". Then you decide how long you are prepared to wait for your chosen trees to "join up".
And I agree with Tagwex about the salt. Mind you, having to agree with him twice in one week - I don't know what the world is coming to!

tagwex · Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 11:03 pm Post subject:

And with the comment the world shall now end.
PS. You are not still in school, you are playing with the big boys now.

dahamsta · Rank attained: Hazel Tree Joined: 15 Apr 2015 Posts: 10

Thanks. I think a fence with climbers would probably be a faster option, and I presume there's nothing stopping us doing both over time.

I'd still prefer to plant into the wall though, no comments on this?

How about installing a fence on the wall? We actually had a temporary fence there before, but it was just cheap thin metal fence posts from B&Q and netting.

tagwex · Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 6:37 pm Post subject:

How about a few metal posts and wire or twine between them to train the creepers on leaving the stone face exposed as a feature. Any amount of rockery plants available and suitable to fit in between the stones. My favourite is Campanula.

Blowin · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 5:40 am Post subject:

Hi to another Blowin and welcome. You'll have to excuse the 'Handbags at Dawn Squad' - they actually mean well.

From my observations locally (10 miles off the coast and that type of wall everywhere) you're going to have to cope with salt in the air, as already said, plus wind. The latter can be a big problem. I can understand the aesthetic side of what you want to do but privacy can be expressed as 'screening', i.e. keeping prying eyes at bay when you're in the garden, and the density needed to achieve that would involve equal resistance to the wind. Unless you can find something with a really deep tap root that'll go down into the soil below the bottom of the wall, anything planted on top of the wall could see you with no vegetation and no wall either next time we have a gale.

Bamboo can be dense enough but, planted at the base of the wall would hide it completely. Rhododendrons could fit the bill by allowing you to trim low foliage for glimpses of the wall - but will take an eternity to grow. The one variety that will do what you want is our old mate, the Leylandii, love it or loathe it. Trimmed regularly it'll be like a solid mass above wall level but let it grow out of control at your peril! One last proviso, do you have legal access to the other side of what looks like your boundary for maintenance purposes (trimming)? If not, it can be difficult keeping control of whatever you choose.

tagwex · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 9:35 am Post subject:

Nooooooooo.

Good guy · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:43 pm Post subject:

A sixty foot high hedge would solve the privacy problem, though!