Creating a Living Fence

When my husband and I bought our house years ago, all that stood on our block were trees filled with birds. I liked the quiet and thought it would be a wonderful place to live.

Once our house and our neighbors’ homes were built, many of those trees were gone, and I saw how close our house is to the schoolyard behind us, offering little privacy. That schoolyard became even closer to our house when a new classroom wing was added to the school behind our house. Children play in that schoolyard both during the day and in the evening after school, so there is often a lot of kid traffic behind our house.

Just last week I paid $100 per bush to have 25 “skip laurel” bushes planted behind our house. The bushes are evergreen and are said to grow rapidly. I’ve read online that planting the bushes is like raging war against one’s neighbor, and that’s what I’d like to do – obliterate my backyard’s complete lack of privacy.

At this moment, the plants don’t create much privacy, but they do soften the harsh institutional look of the school behind our house.

I am hoping the bushes will thrive, branch out and create a lush, green privacy wall behind our house.

So now, I carefully water the bushes with a drip hose an hour every other day, fretting over every droopy or yellow leaf. The plants look healthy for the most part, but I’ve seen other people’s landscaping fail, mainly because of overly dry conditions, and hope these bushes will make it.

I’ve even considered spreading bird seed under the bushes in the hopes that the squirrels and the birds will fertilize the soil around the plants.

That’s probably not the best approach, so I’ll have to do some research on how to best care for the laurels.