Planting trees for privacy

[Mugsandpens]

Two of my neighbours have cut down trees and my next door neighbour is planning to cut down a huge leylandii. While it’s not especially attractive, it does hide a block of flats and a car park.

Apart from the awful environmental impact of this, it now means we hear the nearby main road a lot, are overlooked by lots of houses and are in full sun for most of the day. I have space for two or three small trees that I’d like to plant for screening along the fence.

Does anyone have any suggestions please? It doesn’t have to be evergreen as the garden isn’t used much in the winter. I’d like them to be above the fence so that I can plant underneath.

Also, are there any trees I could plant in a pot to have along a small patio area? Or would bamboo work better for this because of the height it could reach?

We have been planting a lot of trees recently, as our neighbours also seem intent in cutting down everything green, then complain they are hot in the summer, idiots. Anyway.....

We have planted a couple of crab apples, very beautiful flowers, fruit, and Autumn colour. Bees love them. An Almond. Flowers early Spring, and a good one for floaty open habit. A couple of Liquidambers. Upright, don't spread much, fast growing, and fab Autumn colour. A couple of Himalayan birches, again for floaty shade. Lovely in the Summer.

Pleached laurels?

Silver birch (not naturally a small tree, but takes OK to pruning) gives a lovely dappled shade, and has slightly hairy leaves that are good for catching traffic pollution as well as reducing noise. In winter it's not a great screen because the leaves fall off, but the bark is gorgeous.

And the slightly sticky buds in spring attract aphids, which attract tits, so it's a good wildlife one.

I have an apple, a cherry and a pear tree. I love the blossom and fruit, you may not! They taken time to establish and size, but you can buy on 'small' root stock to ensure they don't get too big. I'm also going to buy some pleached hornbeam to deal with an ugly neighbour.

Beware the high hedge rules for rows of trees above fence height. Deciduous trees aren't included in that.

Following

I've lost all privacy in back and front garden thanks to my neighbours

Preached red robins and then a couple of ornamental trees a bit further into the garden

I would go for Laurel. It's evergreen, has bright green attractive leaves and can grow to 6/7 meters fast. I just planted some bigger ones, 2.5 meters height would cost you £50/60 per plant. They create an instant border. You would need around one per meter to create a border. For other areas just plant smaller plants they are a lot cheaper.

Not laurel. It's an absolute thug. And you can't plant under it as the OP wants to - like rhododendron, it poisons the soil.

What soil is your garden? Clay? Chalk? What grows well in neighbouring gardens, that you like?

I'd go for columnar apples, or small cherry trees. They have blossom, bright green leaves, the birds like them and they won't take up too much room.

Hawthorne is quite fast growing and another native that's good for wildlife. Or hazel? Or damson?

None of these get too large so won't get out of hand, but will block noise effectively.

Laurel is horrible, poisonous, gloomy and doesn't support any other species.

You can get fruit trees on miniature root stock, that you can plant in large pots. But then you have all the faff of watering them or buying a watering system, and they don't get very tall.

If you have acid soil, amelanchiers are lovely and quite restrained.

I have planted 4 Rowan trees along our hedge as the neighbour keeps cutting it so short you can see head and shoulders above it and is also building quite a, erm, stand out extension which reaches up our garden length. They're growing quickly, I know they can get pretty tall so am prepared to cut them back but hopeful they will give us shade and privacy. I also have a crab apple planted at the same time and it isn't growing nearly as fast so I suppose it depends on how swiftly you would like some cover.

Rowan are great - they will bring in flocks of birds at berry time.