Native Plants
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Sunday - June 28, 2009
From: Los Angeles, CA
Region: California
Topic: Privacy Screening
Title: Privacy screen in front of cinderblock wall in Los Angeles
Answered by: Barbara Medford
QUESTION:
I'm looking for a privacy hedge to plant along my backyard's cinderblock wall in Los Angeles, CA. I need it to grow 10 - 15 feet and it can't be toxic to dogs. Any advice would be great!ANSWER:
Since we are usually asked for evergreen shrubs for privacy screens, that is what we chose, which is a whole lot easier to find in Southern California than in Maine. We went to our Recommended Species section, clicked on Southern California on the map, and then did Narrow Your Search by searching on shrubs in the drop-down menu, and clicking on Narrow Your Search. You can repeat this search with other criteria, such as amount of sun, etc. None of these plants appeared on the following poisonous plants lists:
Poisonous Plants of North Carolina
Cornell University Plants Poisonous to Livestock
University of Pennsylvania Poisonous Plants
Canadian Poisonous Plants Information System
ASPCA Toxic and Non-toxic Plant List - Dogs
You can follow each plant link to the page on the individual plant and find out projected size and width, what kind of soil it likes, and how much sun it requires.
Shrubs for Southern California
Ceanothus impressus (Santa Barbara ceanothus) - 6 to 8 ft. tall, blooms blue March and April, part shade
Ceanothus leucodermis (chaparral whitethorn) - 4 to 8 ft. tall, blooms white, blue April to June, sun
Comarostaphylis diversifolia (summer holly) - slow-growing to 20 ft, blooms white May and June, part shade
Fremontodendron californicum (California flannelbush) - 6 to 12 ft., blooms ywllow June to September, low water use, part shade
Morella californica (California wax myrtle) - 10 to 25 ft., blooms white, yellow April to July, medium water use, sun or part shade - pictures
More Privacy Screening Questions
Evergreen Hedge for Austin
November 28, 2010 - Hello,
We live in Austin and have a yard that is almost fully shaded. We have a few burford holly bushes there, but would like to add some evergreen interest. We would love a tall hedge (around 8 ft...
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Thorny shrub for deterring break-ins in southeast Texas
February 05, 2013 - Looking for a very, very, thorny three or four foot tall shrub for in front of windows to deter break-ins. Considering Rosa Rugosa rose but it is not native.
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Natural Privacy Planting for New Jersey
October 09, 2013 - I have a question about privacy plantings in New Jersey (Monmouth County). We have a wooden fence around the perimeter of backyard with some various older trees. We wanted to start anew and wanted to ...
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California Vine for Privacy Screening
November 06, 2014 - I have a two story house going up behind my back yard. I would like to plant a climbing vine with non-invasive roots to provide privacy. I live in Los Angeles and the trellis would receive almost full...
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Drought Resistant Privacy Screen for North Side of Austin Texas House
July 10, 2016 - We live in the densely populated Mueller development, where there's barely 3 feet from our home to the 6 foot high privacy fence between us and the house next door. Since the houses are 2 stories, we ...
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