What is the fastest growing tree for privacy?

Leyland cypress is the fastest and the most regretted: around a metre a year, no regrowth from old wood, and two cuts a year to keep it in bounds. Hornbeam, beech and cherry laurel grow at around 30cm to 60cm a year, take a hard cut, and are far easier to live with.

How wide does a screen have to be?

Allow the mature spread of the species plus a margin for the boundary: 1.5m to 2.5m between small trees in a single row, and 2m to 3m in from the fence line. Spacing advice that arrives with screening trees near me listings is usually written for bigger gardens, so measure the space you actually have before you order.

Can I plant right on the boundary?

You can plant on your own land, but the mature crown and the roots will not respect the fence. Plant 2m to 3m inside the line for a small tree and more for anything large, so the screen can be maintained from your side without stepping onto anyone else's ground.

How long before a screen does its job?

A row of bare root whips spaced 1.5m apart knits into a working screen in three or four years, quicker with water and clean ground. A tall instant screen looks finished on the day and then sits still for a season while its roots catch up, which is why small plants often win the race.

What is a pleached tree?

A tree trained into a flat panel of foliage on a clear stem, held on a frame or wires and pruned each year to keep a clean rectangle. It screens at head height while you keep the ground underneath, and a row of them gives privacy without the footprint of a hedge.

Do you plant screening trees?

Yes, through the tree planting service, with species chosen for the sightline, the soil and the light you want to keep. Reduction or removal of a screen that has grown too tall is Ross Webster Tree Services work, linked in the panel on this page. A good number of the privacy trees near me enquiries we get end up needing both jobs, the planting and the cutting back.

Will a screen cause trouble with the neighbour?

Only if it takes their light or their view, so choose the height you actually need and plant inside your line. A deciduous screen makes fewer enemies than an evergreen wall, and keeping the maintenance on your own side is worth thinking about before a thin boundary turns into a dispute.

Which screening trees keep their leaves in winter?

Yew, holly, cherry laurel and most conifers hold their leaves or needles all year. Beech and hornbeam are deciduous but hold their brown leaves through winter when clipped as a hedge, which gives cover without the dark weight of an evergreen wall.

Garden service

Privacy trees and screening trees in North Yorkshire and County Durham

Privacy trees and screening trees for a real boundary: honest growth rates, evergreen or deciduous, how wide a screen must be, the law and the upkeep it brings.

Enquire about this work All garden services

Privacy trees: work out the sightline first

Start with what you are screening and where you sit when it bothers you. A window looking onto a road, a neighbour's extension, a parking area and open field each need different planting. Work out the sightline from the worst seat in the house, because the answer is often a band about 2m to 3m high rather than the whole sky. Privacy trees planted taller than the job needs block more light, take more pruning and cost more to buy.

Give the mature crown room

A screen planted hard against a fence will be cut back into a hedge shape within a few years, and a species that will not reshoot from old wood answers with bare patches that never fill. Allow the full spread of the species at maturity, then add a margin for the boundary. That single measurement decides whether the screen stays a screen or becomes a hedge you resent.

Screening trees: plant a row, not a wall

Screening trees work as a group rather than as a single specimen. A row of five, seven or nine small trees spaced 1.5m to 2.5m apart knits into a dense screen in three or four years. Closer spacing gives quicker cover and a row you will thin sooner as the crowns meet. On a wide plot, two staggered rows give the screen some depth so it does not read as a wall.

Plant small, not tall

A modest tree with an unrestricted root system settles and grows away faster than a large specimen that spends two seasons recovering from the move. Buy bare root whips for a boundary screen where the budget has to cover a length of garden, and put the money into ground preparation instead of height. Our trees for small gardens page covers sizes for a single tree.

Fast growing trees for privacy

The fastest growing trees for privacy are usually the ones that cause the most trouble. Leyland cypress can put on around a metre a year in good ground, and it becomes a light excluding wall that will not reshoot from old wood, so cutting into the brown centre leaves a gap that never fills. Poplar and willow are quick as well, and both are thirsty, brittle in wind and far too large for most gardens.

What a fast screen commits you to

Speed has a price in time. A leylandii screen in a small garden needs two cuts a year to stay inside its bounds, and the clippings have to go somewhere. Miss a year and the screen is over the height you wanted, taking light from a border or a neighbour's window. An honest alternative for a boundary that has to close quickly is hornbeam or cherry laurel at roughly 30cm to 60cm a year, cut hard when it needs it and kept inside a set height.

Where a fast screen has already run away, reducing it or taking it out is Ross Webster Tree Services work, and the panel below this page links to their site.

Evergreen or deciduous screening trees

Evergreen screening gives cover in every month and, in exchange, blocks light all year and shelters less wildlife. Yew and holly are the honest long term choices: slow to start, roughly 15cm to 30cm a year, then very long lived, and both take a hard cut far better than leylandii. Deciduous screens drop their leaves, let winter light through and feed birds and moths. Hornbeam, field maple and beech all work at around 30cm to 45cm a year, and beech clipped as a hedge holds its brown leaves through winter. The compromise most gardens settle on is a mixed screen: a backbone of yew or holly with deciduous trees through it for wildlife and autumn colour.

Whichever you plant, the ground work is the same: a clear strip, weed membrane, a mulch ring, and water through the first two summers. Spot the Woodland Trust planting pages on species for a mixed boundary.

Pleached trees

A pleached tree is trained into a flat panel of foliage on a clear stem, so it screens at head height and above without taking the ground a full crown would need. Pleaching is the training itself: side shoots are tied onto a frame or wires and cut back each year, which builds a dense rectangular panel you can walk under. A row of them makes a raised screen over a driveway, a narrow boundary or a courtyard, and light still reaches the ground beneath. Pleached trees need a frame in the ground, tying in through the first seasons and a summer prune every year, and planting starts with our tree planting service.

What tree law says about screening a boundary

A tree belongs to the land it stands on, not to the side its branches lean over. You may cut back growth that crosses your boundary, but only to the line, and you need the owner's permission to step onto their land to do it. Our overhanging branches page sets that out in full. Where a tree preservation order applies, or the tree stands in a conservation area, consent is needed before any cutting, as the GOV.UK guidance on tree preservation orders and conservation areas explains. Screening that reaches high enough to take a neighbour's light can also be raised with the council under the high hedges rules, so a conversation about a shared boundary is worth having early. Plant inside your own line, choose the height you actually need, and most of these arguments never start.

Tree surgery, handled locally

Tree surgery is handled by Ross Webster Tree Services

This page covers the garden side of tree work: planting, pruning and aftercare. Tree removal, crown reductions, stump grinding, emergency and storm work, tree surveys, ash dieback and commercial contracts are carried out by Ross Webster Tree Services.

Tree removal
Crown reductions
Stump grinding
Emergency and storm work
Tree surveys
Ash dieback
Commercial contracts

They work across the same ground as this practice, and their contact details are on their site.

Ross Webster Tree Services

Questions about privacy trees

What is the fastest growing tree for privacy?: Leyland cypress is the fastest and the most regretted: around a metre a year, no regrowth from old wood, and two cuts a year to keep it in bounds. Hornbeam, beech and cherry laurel grow at around 30cm to 60cm a year, take a hard cut, and are far easier to live with.
How wide does a screen have to be?: Allow the mature spread of the species plus a margin for the boundary: 1.5m to 2.5m between small trees in a single row, and 2m to 3m in from the fence line. Spacing advice that arrives with screening trees near me listings is usually written for bigger gardens, so measure the space you actually have before you order.
Can I plant right on the boundary?: You can plant on your own land, but the mature crown and the roots will not respect the fence. Plant 2m to 3m inside the line for a small tree and more for anything large, so the screen can be maintained from your side without stepping onto anyone else's ground.
How long before a screen does its job?: A row of bare root whips spaced 1.5m apart knits into a working screen in three or four years, quicker with water and clean ground. A tall instant screen looks finished on the day and then sits still for a season while its roots catch up, which is why small plants often win the race.
What is a pleached tree?: A tree trained into a flat panel of foliage on a clear stem, held on a frame or wires and pruned each year to keep a clean rectangle. It screens at head height while you keep the ground underneath, and a row of them gives privacy without the footprint of a hedge.
Do you plant screening trees?: Yes, through the tree planting service, with species chosen for the sightline, the soil and the light you want to keep. Reduction or removal of a screen that has grown too tall is Ross Webster Tree Services work, linked in the panel on this page. A good number of the privacy trees near me enquiries we get end up needing both jobs, the planting and the cutting back.
Will a screen cause trouble with the neighbour?: Only if it takes their light or their view, so choose the height you actually need and plant inside your line. A deciduous screen makes fewer enemies than an evergreen wall, and keeping the maintenance on your own side is worth thinking about before a thin boundary turns into a dispute.
Which screening trees keep their leaves in winter?: Yew, holly, cherry laurel and most conifers hold their leaves or needles all year. Beech and hornbeam are deciduous but hold their brown leaves through winter when clipped as a hedge, which gives cover without the dark weight of an evergreen wall.

Tell us about the garden

Send a few details and we will come back with the next step for the garden.

Contact the practice