Fast growing barrier plant?

[tazmanny]

I would mix Bamboo with Andromeda Shrubs or Emerald Green


Great smell, able to survive your winters


Emerald Green Arbovitae


Bamboo

Bamboo works as a backup for anyone trying to traspass the shrubs or Andromeda trees which each cover 4 feet wide of space. Mix it and you got a pretty decent fence.

[Snapcat]

Bamboo is invasive though, how do you suggest controlling it from spreading all over the place?

[XtraBright]

Osage Orange.

I paid literally one arm and one leg to get 4 little, tiny plants delivered over the ocean, small ones with 3 leaves.

One died but the others are growing like mad and i am just waiting for them to develop their first fruits which will provide me with seeds for the rest.

I will plant them on the other 3 sides of my fence while i planted the front of my property with white spirea, matching the overall tone of house, garden and dog.


Grown up the hedge should look like this.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/luigistrano/473780592/

Trimmed once a year it should be a nice and dense hedge.

[txKingfisher]

Bring me a SHRUBBERY!



Seriously though, +1 to the blackberry bushes and bamboo. Blackberry bushes would make an awesome barrier and provide for a bountiful harvest. Bamboo would grow faster taller and probably a little denser. Good luck!

[Jaqen]

Viburnum or Elaeagnus (Silver Berry) get my vote. Make a wall!

[johnwiseman]

Gota love Bamboo, grows in fast, tall, and thick if you tend it right. Just make sure to salt the earth around it or it will as others have posted take over. Plus you might even get an Obama green credit or something.

[.milFox]

[Kingfisher]

Near the house we have tons of Black berry but out by the road where I dont want anyone coming in from I used Black Locust trees and planted them about 3 to 4 feet apart. They grow real fast and will become trees. The thorns are long and razor sharp. The wood that Locust has is very hard and can be used as fence posts or fire wood. I have it all over my property and we just trans plant the little trees where want them. Cost? zero. I have laced in some Black berry plants out there as well. Nothing like thorns to keep unwanted trespassers away. Kingfisher

[Blast]

Near the house we have tons of Black berry but out by the road where I dont want anyone coming in from I used Black Locust trees and planted them about 3 to 4 feet apart. They grow real fast and will become trees. The thorns are long and razor sharp. The wood that Locust has is very hard and can be used as fence posts or fire wood. I have it all over my property and we just trans plant the little trees where want them. Cost? zero. I have laced in some Black berry plants out there as well. Nothing like thorns to keep unwanted trespassers away. Kingfisher

The young pods of the Black Locust tree are edible after cooking (heat destroys the toxins).
-Blast

[airexurb]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espalier

you'd have to put some work in to it, but you could train fruit trees to do something like this. Then it would be doubly useful!


http://americangardenhistory.blogspot.com/2009/09/trees-espalier.html

[thelight]

If you want a good hedgerow type barrier, use multiple plant types. It's better than monocropping for a slew of reasons.
Get a nice thorny shrub like the previously mentioned pyracantha or blackberry (or both! or more!). Then add in a mix of Ironwood (Carpinus caroliniana), hazelnuts (real cheap from the Arbor Day Foundation right now) and other traditional hedgerow plants. If you think about the row in vertical layers, you can even get more food out of it by using a ground cover food crop like strawberries or vine-ing plants as well. On the road side, consider planting sunflowers as they grow tall and fast.

[Electricity]

Some really great info here. Have you considered grape vines? With some work you could make a pretty good fence of them. Maybe paired with bamboo. And blackberrys too!

[Blacksmith]

I forgot we also use Yucca too. We put this where we don't want people walking. The bad part is that it is damn near unkillable and will grow back from even a tiny root stock. Once it gets large it starts to push other things out of the way. I planted some in front of the privacy fence to discourage people from climbing over it.

[tazmanny]

I forgot we also use Yucca too. We put this where we don't want people walking. The bad part is that it is damn near unkillable and will grow back from even a tiny root stock. Once it gets large it starts to push other things out of the way. I planted some in front of the privacy fence to discourage people from climbing over it.

+1 for that idea, Cactus fence would do good too if mixed with berries.

[acrolite]

Nice - Even more great info. Thanks again, everyone! (And feel free to keep the ideas flowing!)

Obviously, the idea is going to be to strike the right balance between cost, growth speed, ease of maintenance and effectiveness in terms of deterring/blocking intruders, maintaining privacy, blocking sound (if possible) and, as a bonus, producing some other additional "extra" like growing something edible.

I think blackberries are bound to be part of the plan, since we've got a lot of them already growing at other parts of the property and the wife makes some killer blackberry jam and cobbler.

But, I've got all winter to plan things out, and I'll be sure to post info regarding which direction I go.

[11b20]

tag for later reading

[Blacksmith]

Yucca is quite edible, grows fast and seems to not die not matter what you do to it.

[Crazy Wolf]

Gota love Bamboo, grows in fast, tall, and thick if you tend it right. Just make sure to salt the earth around it or it will as others have posted take over. Plus you might even get an Obama green credit or something.

I wouldn't rely on salt, salt can be moved by rain and might not penetrate deep enough. When my parents still had bamboo in the backyard, the only thing that stopped the bamboo from encroaching further was when we put in a solid metal barrier. Seeing as bamboo rhizomes can be tough and sneaky things, this barrier approach is what I'd recommend.

Oh, and yucca has also been used as a source for rope fibers for centuries, so there's another bonus to using it.

[KnightoftheRoc]

I was thinking about this for another thread, and I figured I'd post it here, too.

If you have this stuff as a border on your property, do NOT plant food bearing plants where they would be accessible from the outside of your property. It would only encourage the hungry wanderer to investigate further as he tries to forage for food off your "fence". If you want to screen the view of your location as well as deter intruders, having anything that would invite closer proximity would also invite closer inspection.

Along a roadside, I'd plant native nasties- in my area, that could be any of a variety of prickly bushes, and let them just go nuts. Behind that, plant some trees like conifers- which retain their foliage year round. Not only would they act as a vision barrier, but also as a windscreen, saving you money on heating bills. On the INSIDE of the border, I'd consider the berry bushes, as a second layer of nasties, and as a food source you could probably harvest from without being seen from the other side.
Having the conifers swapped out for a thorn bearing tree would be good for security, but it rarely happens in Nature to have a self-protecting tree surrounded by self protecting bushes. Also, thorn bearing trees (in my AO, I'm not aware of any others) don't keep their leaves year round- you'll get mulch for the pricker bushes, but at the cost of visibility. Combine natural items with things they'd normally be seen with in the woods, don't plant the trees uniformly, and it will look much more natural, affording camouflage as well as security.

[Jeriah]

See, that's what I said, but either nobody got it or they were too busy taking the question seriously.

I bet if you combined bamboo and blackberries you could come up with some really awesome fence designs. Like carefully train the blackberries on the bamboo so it's all tightly woven into a wall...