Leylandii

[Hotchocolatewithcream]

First of all, does anyone know if they come in variegated or are they only available in that boring deep green shade?

Secondly, how long to grow to at least 15 feet from a small plant?

I know it’s their garden and their choice but I am sick and tired of the neighbours at the back cutting their trees.

They moved in with beautiful, huge, mature woodland trees higher than their house and keep cutting them constantly down to just a few feet above the fence, so about 10 feet tall give or take.
The trees look absolutely ridiculous and I’ve lost my privacy and I want it back!

I planted gold ones years ago for privacy along one boundry. They grow quite quickly but it depends how small. Wherever you buy them from they'll give you an idea of what to expect.
I know they are much maligned but mine are fine. I have kept them at about 8' high. They get a cut once a year.

Gold sounds nice, it doesn’t have to leylandii but I want something dense and evergreen that can be tightly clipped that’ll grow nice and tall as quickly as possible

There are lots of choices for evergreen hedges that clip nicely but I think leylandi is the fastest growing.

Leylandii is just a species of fir tree. There are a whole range of evergreen trees out there that would suit becoming a hedge. Leylandii are extremely quick growing and thugs.

Well it'll piss them off. I'd be tempted just for that. Poor tree.

@Hotchocolatewithcream do check the High Hedge rules. A hedge over 2 m can come under these rules.

Our neighbour has a huge leylandi hedge - 20 ft. We can't grow anything in our garden (which is relatively small) as the roots are depriving our grass of water and nutrients. Our garden is always in shade. We are now going to have to go through the Council to get an enforcement notice.

I know it would take more time, but could you plant some tress. Our other neighbours have planted apple trees which have grown relatively quickly and are far less damaging.

Have a look on the rhs website for conifers. They have a good site with decent pictures of stuff. Or get to your local independent garden centre and ask. Now is the time of year for tree planting so there should be lots in stock. Buy the tallest plants you can afford. When you cut them for the first time they want to be a good foot or 2 taller than the finished height of the hedge. This means you can cut off the top foot or two and have an instant looking hedge rather than it be straggly for years. Have a look at Thorpe trees website. They are based near York but think they do mail order. Lots of variety and most importantly prices are all on the website too!

Leylandii is just a species of fir tree. There are a whole range of evergreen trees out there that would suit becoming a hedge. Leylandii are extremely quick growing and thugs
Can you suggest some for me please @TreacleHart

Tbh it's all about the shape , style of the branches , colour , etc . I would Google suggestions of pine trees / conifers that suit hedging .

Tbh it's all about the shape , style of the branches , colour , etc . I would Google suggestions of pine trees / conifers that suit hedging
I just want a dense, evergreen, small leafed tree that will grow to 15 - 20 feet tall that I can clip regularly to form a ‘tight’ hedge 🤷‍♀️

20 foot high is quite big and could potentially block light into your home or those of neighbours.
Tall trees suck out the nutrients in the ground so you might find grass / other plants will suffer.

20 foot high is quite big and could potentially block light into your home or those of neighbours.
Tall trees suck out the nutrients in the ground so you might find grass / other plants will suffer
Before the neighbours started butchering them their existing trees were higher than that, they were taller than the house so they provided complete privacy and a beautiful view.

I’d look out at my garden and the end of my garden would be my fence and woodland behind it.
Now it’s my fence then a line of ridiculous, short beheaded trees peeping above and their ugly house!
I want my gorgeous woodland view back!!

DH used to cut their trees branches (the ones he could reach anyway!) back to the fence regularly as being so big the branches went over quite some way into our garden.
We never noticed much shade cast.

I’m happy to look into other suggestions but as it stands, I’m buying gold leylandii and will be trimming them regularly into a very dense hedge.

Leylandii is just a species of fir tree It's not a species. It's a hybrid between two particular species. I can remember when it was first bred and introduced into the horticultural trade - Gardeners' Question Time were recommending it all over the place, this wonderful new vigorous hedging plant. It seemed ideal!

Now it’s my fence then a line of ridiculous, short beheaded trees peeping above and their ugly house! I sympathise. My NDN had a wonderful garden, all tall bushes and trees, with rambling roses and clematis cascading down. We couldn't see another house when we looked out of our windows. Then new neighbours moved in and put the whole lot through a shredder, and we had an almost unimpeded view down to an ugly red brick house with huge picture window and almost as huge TV.

If you're OK about hedge cutting twice a year you'll be fine with leylandii. The thing to remember is they don't re-shoot from old wood, so to keep them green and within bounds you need to prune little and often, you can't take three feet off and expect them to green up again.

Elder trees. They grow very fast and you can cut them back hard to keep them bushy. Flowers and berries are edible. Mine are tall enough to keep privacy. They also look more like woodland trees than the conifers (I have both).

Mine went from 1ft sapling sticks to full lovely trees within 5years but were fine for privacy sooner.

What about something nice like Laurel? It grows very fast, doesn’t have rhe large horrible brown woody area at rhe bottom ans grows to about 25 feet.

If you’re feeling flush and can go a bit lower, some camellia grows to about 15 feet and makes a beautiful hedge. However they are slow growing so you’d need to buy mature and it is not cheap. Pic attached.

Leylandi are not good looking, so if I was going to do it, I’d put something attractive in rather than something relatively ugly.

Going to look into Elder trees thank you, I would prefer something woodland looking really, the only reason why I was thinking more towards a hedge rather than trees was although I prefer the look of trees, with a hedge I can trim it neatly to the boundary so it won’t be encroaching on the neighbours.

I’m a bit fearful that a big tree will grow well over the fence line into the neighbours garden and given what they have done to their trees I imagine they’d be furious!

I can cut the branches of course but then it’ll be a literal half tree!
What if that makes it unstable and liable to blow over in hard wind for instance?

I’m not keen on laurel truthfully, loads of houses have it round here and I find it very boring to look at.

Camellias I love but don’t grow any as we have quite alkaline soil here

I have had and would recommend Hornbeam, native, deciduous but doesn't drop leaves until the new leaves appear, so fairly dense all year round.

Just had a thought...
The ‘wild’, scraggy looking buddleja that grows on railways.
Would that grow in a lightly shaded spot with trees behind..?

Because there’s quite a few of them in this area, I imagine I could pluck a couple of baby ones without anyone caring....

I don’t know how high the wild variety grows to but MIL has a gorgeous mature tree buddleja in her garden

I do already have a cherry tree and an apple tree infront of the fence where the future leylandii/elder/whatever will go but they are very young and whippy.
They’ll be trained as fans eventually but I’m too impatient, I need a fast growing buddy to give me my privacy back

I’ve just put in a baby buddleja and hoping it will give some summer privacy. My neighbours put in a patio right next to our 4ft front fence so they can look straight into our living room window while using it! So I’ve put in the buddleja in hope it will offer some light privacy between the fence and window. As it dies back each year it shouldn’t affect the winter sunlight to the neighbours garden.

I don’t know how high the wild variety The wild one is just Buddleia davidii same as the named garden varieties with purple or white spires of flowers. Wiki says 5m, RHS says 4m, with time to ultimate height 10 years. Barely tall enough if you want 15ft.