Living Fences™ made of ornamental evergreens such as Hollies, Leyland Cypress and Green Giant Arborvitae. Instead of using hard goods such as metal or wood fences for screens in the landscape, these natural barriers create privacy, shade and closure to your landscape. Evergreens are an excellent biomass filter, producing oxygen and helping to reduce your carbon footprint.
Privacy trees are almost always at the top of the list for homeowners moving into a new home or when new construction buildings go up around you. We all want to feel our home and garden are our own, and nothing does that better than evergreen privacy screens. Got nosey neighbors? Privacy trees are the … Continue reading How to Pick the Right Privacy Tree
In our last blog, we talked about soil types affecting the availability and uptake of plant nutrients. Sandy soils , which drain quickly, may not have sufficient N, P and K due to leaching, as the water rapidly leaves a sand area. Over the years rains can remove a lot of nutrients from a porous area to the garden. Regular watering is needed to establish new trees and may move materials away also, from sandy planting mix. If you could see a cross section of the soil draining, the water you are applying moves rapidly out of the sand in a more pointed, dagger like profile.
The largest evergreen trees for privacy screening that we grow and transplant, are 15 feet tall Thuja Green Giant Arborvitaes. For almost 40 years we have successfully planted large green giant privacy screens throughout the Baltimore/Washington area. Our green giant trees are grown from rooted cuttings at Pryor's Nursery in Damascus, Maryland. On our website we … Continue reading How Tall Are The Evergreen Trees We Grow Locally?
Early this spring a client asked me to plant our Nellie Stevens Holly trees to form a privacy screen at his place in Oxford, Maryland. Wow!! Oxford Maryland, home of the original Nellie Stevens Holly, is where ~ 100 years ago, gardener Nellie R. Stevens experimented with holly cross breeding and cultivated a new variety which … Continue reading Home of the Original Nellie Stevens Holly
Today we also use holly trees to create beautiful living fences for year round privacy screening. The holly trees can be trimmed a bit during the holiday season so you can make your own wreath or kissing ball. Or, you can go eco friendly by using a live holly tree as your holiday tree, then plant it in your yard afterwards.
The late spring is the time every year when the Nellie Stevens holly creates new berries. The hollies are cross pollinated by the bees. Hollies that have pollinated flowers will develop small green berries that will grow and become red in the fall.
This time of year is when the Nellie Stevens Holly casts off any damaged leaves from last year, those are the yellow leaves you see falling to the ground.
The evergreen privacy fence of Holly trees drops some of their leaves in the spring and it's flower production, if pollinated by the bees, produces the berries.
Nice crowd at The Maryland Home and Garden show at the Timonium fairgrounds. It was great to meet 2 of the Pryor's Nursery VIP show ticket contest winners! And of course, 100s of people interested in privacy screening for their home inquired about the living fence. We had a sample of our evergreen trees at the show for everyone to see. The 7ft Green Giants ,10 ft tall Green Giant, a 7 ft Nellie Stevens Holly and a Leyland Cypress were on display in our show booth.
We receive this question every year, and yes , you may use the holly berries for seasonal decorations. Prune or clip out the pieces of branch you need that contain the holly leaves and red berries.