For those who live in Florida, you are familiar with the city of West Palm Beach. Our sunny city is one of the many towns in Florida with a tropical rainforest climate—making the temperature warm and the humidity high.
The trees are green, the palm trees are plenty, and the colorful flowers that are in bloom are surely smiling back at the sun. Are you picturing this scene in your head? It is absolutely glorious. This is hands down, one of the most beautiful places to live—in my opinion.
Unfortunately, that naturally comes with a lot of these homes being fairly close to each other. There’s no helping that. Neighborhoods have houses that are right next to each other.
People living in the West Palm Beach area often shop for hedges for one specific reason—and that is to ‘hide’ their yard or parts of their home from the people around them. The message that is very clear to me is that these people love and enjoy their alone time, and helping them achieve their peaceful state is a pretty nice feeling. They want to be left alone, or they want to sit down somewhere while being able to have a look at how the side/backyard just melds with the background of the sky and the Atlantic or maybe where the sun happens to set near the horizon.
Now it doesn’t have to sound as dramatic as I’ve made it. Some people want to go in a more practical or ‘stylish’ approach to this. A hedge can sometimes serve as a less oppressive type of wooden fence. It could be a sort of defense against the…
Why Choose Privacy Hedges for Your West Palm Beach Yard?
A privacy hedge is a great idea for many homes. Who wouldn’t want to sit outside and not hear…
…the car you should have sold two years ago but didn’t the guy next door singing to his wife—I mean, how many times do I have to hear that? your computer sounding the ‘Zoom call starting’ alarm Privacy screening can put serenity back into your back yard and make your happy place the actual happy place you go to all the time. Yes, the back yard can again be your escape.
You will add beauty to your yard. No alligator in your swamp, I mean lake, doesn’t want to improve the aesthetics in their yard. With your personal selection of Flora, your house will look ‘Florida better’. With each selected piece of plant material, you may choose to accentuate the appeal of your home.
You may choose the type of plant material that best fits your desire.
Add to your local ecosystem. More birds (Robin should have these birds in her name. she always has a ‘friend’), flowers, and beneficial insects are always good to munch out the bad insects.
Enhanced Florida hardy hedging.
Characteristics of Fast-Growing Plants
Fast-growing plants, as the name suggests, become full size in a very short space of time, often just a few years or seasons. As a group, they are particularly useful where you need to create some kind of sizeable living structure quickly, such as a hedge, fence, or small multistem shrub as living decoration in among a garden border. If you want a ‘natural’ break, away from the prying eyes of neighbours or people walking by the front of your property, then you can grow the likes of a Leyland cypress or privet hedge and have it reach full size in a few short years. Equally, many fast-growing plants and shrubs are good for landscaping projects as a whole.
They can be placed strategically around a garden, such as at borders and at entranceways or exits, with other large and medium-tall plants put behind or in front of them, to form an orderly back to front layered structure to a selection of plants at each one of those points. Fast growing shrubs are popular with gardeners for these strategic visual reasons, as well as because they help to fabricate physical barriers quickly, meaning you can get on with enjoying your garden, without having to wait a decade or two for them to become fully established.
Top Fast-Growing Privacy Hedges for West Palm Beach
Podocarpus, or Yew Plum Pine
For those in search of a fast-growing privacy hedge, the Podocarpus, or Yew Plum Pine is a great plant to consider when you’re in the West Palm Beach area. This evergreen tree can get up to 10-30 feet, depending on the size you are looking for in your hedge.
This plant grows about 2-3 feet per year. This plant can create a lush display, thanks to the dense foliage of the plant. The thicker the foliage, the better the privacy wall.
All you need is some shearing clippers and you’re good to go. Pruning can help control the height and reduce the spread of the tree so that it can look a particular way in your yard.
Leyland Cypress
The Leyland Cypress is one of my favorite trees, and a lot of homeowners seem to like it too.
Thanks to the speed of growth, this hedge will grow up high. You can get about 2 feet out of the year for a height push if you want, and at max, 4 feet of vertical growth in a single year. Some people attest 3-4 feet per year.
Tips for Planting and Maintaining Your Privacy Hedges
Select the right shrubs to establish a beautiful border for your West Palm Beach residence. Many homeowners select fast-growing plants, like viburnums or a variant of “boxwood.” These plants grow in quickly, providing immediate privacy. Several issues are unique to gardens in the West Palm Beach area, such as spacing. To greatly reduce disease, it’s important to provide air circulation by planting the individual shrubs with the proper spacing. Also, most gardeners in the South Florida region are very concerned with soil and sunlight conditions.
All new plants require a steady supply of moisture in the general “rooting” area. It will take at the very least a couple of months to develop roots long enough to survive on watering during only very dry periods. To promote “deep root growth,” always water as deeply as the soil will allow. This extended watering period will always require that the water source be moved to moisten the other plants in the new hedge. One watering technique is “deep soaking,” which means “filling up” each planting hole multiple times until the water begins to flow out, only on the surface. Only very sandy 100% soil will allow water to flow directly through the “natural” hole in the soil. Most “mulches” will help retain obsolete moisture and also help reduce the “weed” population.
Most home gardeners just apply a “good, stable” fertilizer product that releases a few “feedings” right over “Spring.” A good additional technique is to merely add one cup per plant to your existing landscape plants and also all newly planted container shrubs or trees. Make sure that most fertilizers are spread around the base of the plant, entirely around the “seen top” (canopy). Like watering new plants, always be very conservative in your amounts — too much food is simply too much. Testing your soil at regular intervals will “probably” be the best technique over time. Gathering soil samples is at first cumbersome and somewhat expensive but will improve the long-term results of most plants.
Most hedges require light trimming or “shaping.” A “boxed” or even “rounded” look is simply much easier with most informal hedge plants. Most new homeowners prefer a “perfect line” of each hedge plant essentially touching the other individual plant uniformly. Remember to keep most general-purpose hedge tools very sharp, as tender plant material will easily cut. Most pruning or any cut from any sharp object will respond in your plant material as a sudden injury; keep all cuts level and straight across to always promote rapid healing.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing Privacy Hedges
For Florida homeowners—and others—here are a few pitfalls that come with the territory of selecting and planting a privacy hedge. You’ll have to navigate these no matter what.
- Choosing the wrong plant for your particular conditions: It’s Florida, after all. And, for some reason, although plenty of plants simply won’t survive in our state’s heat and humidity, many stubborn homeowners insist on planting them anyway. These non-natives that are doomed to fail just don’t have what it takes to withstand the oppressiveness that we call summer. In my opinion, you don’t need to battle mother nature to grow a strong, solid hedge. This is why I recommend two main types of Florida hedge plants—Podocarpus and Viburnum—that will serve you right in wintery lows and sweltering highs.
- Not planning ahead: Not knowing the dimensions of your hedge, a “mature size” that is, may leave it more or less desirable in the long-run. Too close to the sidelines, the bases of your plants will compete for the hay it takes to maintain a comely bristle. You don’t want to dig a hole that is too shallow—nor should it be too deep. The top of the rootball, where the stem begins to widen, is a signal that this here, here is ‘the planting depth.’ And, the width is a sign that here-be danger.
- Letting a shrub be a shrub: Let nature take its course. While a shrub will grow into a small (sometimes moderate) tree, historically, biological time never stopped for Australians—Go.
FAQ Section
- There are three hedges that are very common for homeowners in South Florida to use for privacy barriers, including Podocarpus, Leyland Cypress, and Viburnum.
- Podocarpus (also known as the Japanese Yew) is favored for its dense canopies (in addition to their resilience and ability to adapt to most soil conditions).
- The Leyland Cypress is a better choice for anyone who needs a privacy hedge now as these fast-growing evergreen plants can get very tall, very quickly.
- The Viburnum doesn’t get quite as tall as the other privacy hedges on the list but they more than make up for their height in the beauty of their flowers and their lovely scent. When these bushes bloom, homeowners get to enjoy the beauty of the flowers in their yard and the sweet, heavy smell they emit—excellent trait construction for a little bit of aromatherapy when you go out to pick up your mail (or to relax in your backyard).
- Many of the trees, shrubs, and other hedges that I’ve listed above can get pretty tall: Florida privacy hedges can often grow up to heights of 3 to 5 ft in a single year, even more so because the amount of constant sunlight that the Humidity State gets turns a privacy fence into a bit of a massive bush magic beanstalk overnight. But if you have fences in the region that just won’t grow, I suggest treating the problem with an at-home soil test: most likely, the problem is a lack of organic matter in your compacted sand. Or, worse yet, too much manure.
- Podocarpus hedges are famously hardy but even they won’t tolerate poor (or drainage) soil conditions for long. Unless you constantly keep on top of the tree and trim everything back, the tree will look leggy. That’s one of the many reasons why you should consider hiring tree care services. If your trees become too big to handle, you could be putting yourself in danger by climbing up ladders to do the landscaping yourself.
The reason people plant privacy bushes in Florida is that we no longer live in a time and place where poor fences make for good neighbors. Instead, an argument over a public property or an unkindly view will; e.g., what I like about you: pick up all of the dog poo from your yard!
Hedges are at their best when there’s no one on your back patrolling you to breathe down your neck and look at you; i.e., tech neck. If you want to put your hedges on a street or a neighbor’s side, that’s not a ticket for them to cross over into your driveway or into your space and time lethal disorder.
When in doubt, plant your hedges on good soil on either side of the head – so long as you don’t cancel out your vision. We work with home garden keepers for a living to tell you that the common cause for many hedges in Rain Country pouring on the tippers is that they’ve invested too much (water) in the hedge. Oh, Man, it’s hot out here!
If you’re a homeowner in West Palm Beach, fast-growing privacy hedges could be the perfect choice to enhance your outdoor living areas. Create a natural “wall” to significantly, if not completely, insulate you from encountering unwanted noise or unsightly structures. Plus, a well-placed cover of green makes any space more beautiful. Whether you’re relaxing with family, planning that long-awaited get together, or simply enjoying the evening breeze, do it in the comfort of your own oasis.
Design insular walls all around or encompass your oasis with a mix of fast and slow-growing trees. Not only will you get to enjoy a heightened degree of privacy faster, but you’ll save money, too. Depending on the species of the hedging plants, you might be required to wait anywhere between 3 to 30 years! Thanks to Mother Nature, a number of species such as the Leyland Cypress and Thuja Green Giant are famed among landscaping enthusiasts for their potential to grow up to 5 feet! (in just two years). A few, albeit rare, species exceed well beyond 10, reaching a shocking 15 or 20 feet in just a couple of short years!
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