oversize fir trees need to go......replace them with what?

[soontobeslendergirl]

the previous occupants of our house planted some conifers down the side of the drive.....fast fwd 8 years and now some of them are 12 feet high- others are wide rather than tall -the one nearest the house is the biggest and only about 5 feet from the front of the house. They look a rag bag mess and need to go.

Don't have the money, the equipment or the time to pay to get them taken out or to dig out the stumps/roots ourselves. Soooo we were thinking that we could fell them and then plant some other shrubs to disguise the stumps and form a neater "hedge".

The front is East facing but gets sun most of the day from the south too. However, the soil is quite clay and in crap condition.

can anyone recommend an inexpensive fix or type of type of shrub?

Watching with interest, as I have four 20+foot high conifers down the end of my garden that need to go for the same reason. My concern would be the roots - even after the trees have gone, the root network will still remain, which is pretty dense for conifers. They will also have sapped most of the goodness out of the soil, especially if yours is clay.

How about putting a deep top dressing on, say a foot or two of top soil, mulch, compost etc? You could probably plant straight into that and the constant damp around the conifer stumps might encourage them to decompose.

When we moved into our house last feb we had a conifer cut down from the back of the garden. The tree was a good 40 years old and had never even been topped so it towered over the house. We had the stump cut down to ground level and then grooves cut into the stump so the moisture can get in and over time root it away. The soil was pretty poor dry and clay so i didn't want to plant any shrubs. I spread with a thick layer of compost and then I planted masses of iris bulbs and some wild geranium and spread wild flower seeds. It looked lovely and all the wild flowers have self seeded this year.

Yeah I thought that we may not be able to to plant anything because there would be too many roots :(

basically we have a lawn with a cherry blossom tree in it - it is open plan and has a two car driveway - slabs and chips to one side. The conifers are in a line (and one round the corner) down the side of the drive. I think it might look a bit odd if we piled up top soil and OH is only agreeing to the trees going if we have something else in their place as he thinks it will be too bare. I don't - I just want rid and would happily maybe stick a bit of edging in on the lawn past where the trees are now and fill the stump area with chips or something to form a path from the street to the door up the side of the drive - it would stop people walking up between the cars too - we could then actually see the lawn and the cherry tree.

cantspel that sound lovely but I don't think it would work where the trees are - i.e. in an open plan exposed space :(