Native Plants

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Thursday - September 10, 2009

From: Edgewood, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Privacy Screening
Title: Plants for privacy screen in Edgewood TX
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

Can you recommend a large fast growing tree, shrub, etc. that can give me some privacy from my neighbor across the street that likes to use his binoculars? I live in East Texas on about 10 acres.

ANSWER:

Since we assume that your neighbor's binoculars work year-round, we are going to recommend two evergreen shrubs native to East Texas. These will not give you instant privacy; nursery grown plants will take 3 to 5 years to reach 6 ft. or so tall, but they are a beginning. Don't consider planting them now, wait until November when it is cooler and perhaps the rains are more consistent. When you purchase the shrubs, insist on inspecting the roots of each plant to make sure they are not rootbound. You can clip roots before the shrub is planted, but once it is in the ground there is not much you can do, and the roots can end up strangling the plant. Follow the links to pages on each individual plant for other growing information.

Native evergreen shrubs for East Texas

Ilex vomitoria (yaupon) - evergreen, 12 to 25 ft., low water use, part shade

Morella cerifera (wax myrtle) - evergreen, 6 to 12 ft., high water use, sun or part shade

Pictures from the Native Plant Image Gallery

Ilex vomitoria