At some point during the planning stage of your outdoor landscape project, you are going to need to think about trees. Why? Trees add intimacy and privacy to outdoor areas and function as the anchors for all other planted areas. Here we’ll look specifically at the addition of evergreen trees to your Westchester County home.
Why Evergreens?
Evergreens provide effortless greenery throughout the year. No matter how cold it is, an evergreen will always offer some greenery for your yard so it will never have that stark, bare look of winter. And let’s not forget that this type of tree offers privacy, additional animal habitat, shade, and wind protection for your property throughout the year.
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Choose Well
There are many wonderful evergreen tree specimens for the Westchester County area. Take your time discussing the options with your landscape contractor in order to select the right trees for your property. Remember, these will be permanent and will function as anchor plants in your yard. Trees for zone 6a-7a are hardy enough to withstand the low winter temperatures of Westchester County, but even so, you want to also focus on aesthetics and choose trees that fit in with your landscape design.
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Of course when people think of evergreens, they often think of huge evergreen trees such as the Douglas fir or the Towering Redwood, but there are also specimens that are not as large or as unmanageable as these specimens. There are many evergreen trees that grow under 30 feet in height, tall enough to provide structure to the landscape but not so tall that they overpower the landscape.
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A beautiful example of one of these evergreen trees is the Umbrella Pine. This is an unusual tree and native to Japan, but does well in Westchester County. It has shiny green needles which spread out like spokes of an umbrella. You might also consider the dwarf Blue Spruce, a tree with the height of only 10 feet and beautiful blue foliage. The silver Korean fir is another outstanding tree because of its unusual coloring. Here the undersides of the needles are silver-white and reflect beautifully in the snow and sunlight. Other beautiful trees include the Weeping Blue Atlas, the Bristlecone Pine dwarf, Alberta Spruce and White Spruce. Remember, however, that choosing the right type of evergreen tree needs to be reflective of your landscape design.
Growing Evergreen Trees for Privacy
Besides offering beauty, evergreens can offer a natural boundary or privacy screen for your Westchester County home. They offer the perfect landscaping element because when placed in groups or rows, they tend to form tall privacy hedges which give you both beauty and security. Types of evergreen foliage that work well as privacy screens include trees like the Leyland Cypress. This is a tree that develops into an elegant barrier as it can grow up to 60 ft high with a 15 to 25 foot branch spread. Juniper trees also develop into attractive screened fences especially since the branches offer a wide spread, and when planted in groups, the branches form a wonderful privacy screen.
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