Melissaaxaudreyy
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Natural Hedge Question

Hello, I am new to this forum so I apologize if I posted this in the wrong section. My fiancée and I purchased our home as a short sale in August of 2015 and the yard was quite overgrown for an urban lot. We've mainly focused on the house for the past two years, but we are starting to shift more of our focus outdoors. We have pushed the growth back to the edges of our lot so that we have a decent yard space, and every summer I love the dense privacy barrier it creates, but the question has aros what type(s) of plants are in it? My mother tried to tell me it was grape vines but there were no grapes to be seen. My grandmother said that it's full of poison oak. It doesn't really matter to me what it is, but I certainly don't want to let poison oak run rampant through the other plant life. I'm hoping the photos I provided will help you guys help me understand what I've got going on here. We are located in Kingston, NY which is growing zone 5-6 if that helps any. Thank you in advance!
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rainbowgardener
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Much of it is wild grape vine. Maybe it doesn't make grapes because it is too shaded. But wild grapes are not edible anyway, except for birds. The five leafed ones are something else, maybe virginia creeper. I don't see anything that looks like poison oak, which has three leaflets just as poison ivy does:
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The tall skinny trees are ailanthus, aka tree of heaven, aka stink tree. It is an invasive exotic and will never get any prettier.

Were there originally hedge shrubs under all the vines?
Last edited by rainbowgardener on Tue Jun 13, 2017 9:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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pinksand
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I'm also definitely seeing tons of wild grape vine and virginia creeper for sure! I'm not sure exactly what it is climbing... it looks like maybe oak saplings and a maple tree? As mentioned already, there's tree of heaven mixed in as well. I'm not seeing any poison oak.

Melissaaxaudreyy
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Thank you for the answers. I greatly appreciate the insight.

I'm unsure of whether or not there were originally hedges under there, the whole back yard looked like this and we just trimmed back enough to have 2-3 ft of 'foliage' between us and the neighbors.

What I do know about the property is from an elderly neighbor who was (and still is) living across the street when our home was built.

We live in a late 1800's neighborhood in a 1950's ranch (the only one). We assumed it was a burn down or a demolition scenario, but actually the house next door to ours was on a double lot and there was an elderly woman who was raised in it and was struggling to live independently primarily due to the stairs. Her daughter moved in to the home with her to aide and shortly after they divided their lot into two and built this home for her mother. There is a retaining wall between the 'original house' and ours with steps leading down into the yard so it backs up the story that my fiancée and I shrugged off as a tall tale. According to the gentleman across the street both homes apparently had lovely gardens vegitable, herbal and floral. Apparently after the mother passed (1996ish) the house was sold to a slum lord whose tenants ran it into the ground, then it came up as a short sale and we purchased it.

I have so many wonderful (mature) plants on the lot. I have relocated the ones I recognized (mainly flowers) to save on landscaping costs, but the majority is an unknown to me.

I have been using the app called GardenAnswers and that has helped me a ton but leaves a lot of plants up for debate.

My follow up question is if this were your yard would you let whatever assortment of growth I have here run rampant (in a controlled fashion) as a cheap privacy screen?

We've discussed other options:
A) get rid of everything and plant thula green giants (approximately $20ea planted every 5 ft for 80')
B) Get rid of everything and put in T posts to zip tie some cheap bamboo fencing from Home Depot ($40/roll for 20' lengths to span the same 80' stretch)
C) Leave what is existing, remove the "weeds" and put in T posts with metal wire fencing to support the vine growth as a natural barrier.

We have also discussed a wood or vinyl privacy fence but the 4' retaining wall (that we unfortunately own) is in dier need of replacement and don't want to install something that will increase the strain on the wall until we replace it (hopefully in the next 3-4 years).

We actually own 2 retaining walls, both in terrible shape. One about 4' tall and 150' long the other 6' tall and 100' long. We got a bid and were told between $30k-$60k to replace both. But that's another whole forum.

Your insight is so greatly appreciated!

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rainbowgardener
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The four foot retaining wall you can build yourself cheaper for just a bit of grunt work, from interlocking concrete blocks.

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These come in many colors, sizes, styles and different ways they interlock.The ones I use just have a little lip at the back, so that it hangs over the edge of the one below. The trick to it is you HAVE to dig a trench for the bottom layer, 4" deep and then fill it with 2" of paver sand. Set the blocks in so they are half below ground and make sure they are COMPLETELY level.

Once you have the first layer set and levelled, all the rest is just stacking blocks. They don't need any mortar or anything.

Here's a raised bed I am building from them
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It's two quarters of what will be a complete circle with paths between the quarters. Note the levels still lying on them!!

For 150', 4 ft tall you would need 12 pallets of blocks , which would run you about $6,000 unless you find them on sale, which sometimes happens. Depends on whether you value your time or your money more. It would be a big project.

But they aren't supposed to be used 6' tall, at least not this kind. There are bigger blocks with different kind of interlocks which can be used that way.

thanrose
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Do you recall any flowers in all that dense growth? I ask because some of the leaves look like Rose of Sharon. In the closer focused photo, there's an area at the lower right that has a handful of vertical gray brown bare vines. The leaves flanking that spot on its upper right and lower left look like hibiscus family which would only be Rose of Sharon for you.

If you thought your grapes might be interesting to continue to grow, you'll probably have to prune them before next spring. They don't set a lot of fruit unless there has been some challenge line set. Say a deer trail brushing and breaking foliage, a late spring freeze, shearing, a nearby tree coming down, forest fire, etc.

Melissaaxaudreyy
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thanrose wrote:Do you recall any flowers in all that dense growth? I ask because some of the leaves look like Rose of Sharon. In the closer focused photo, there's an area at the lower right that has a handful of vertical gray brown bare vines. The leaves flanking that spot on its upper right and lower left look like hibiscus family which would only be Rose of Sharon for you.
Yes, I have salvaged 4 or so Rose of Sharon from around the property. Maybe they never bloomed because of all of the other competing plants and/or not enough sun light?

So far I have gotten Daffodils,Hyacinths, Hostas, Gladiolus, Johnny Jump Ups, Bleeding Hearts, Boston Ivy, Rose of Sharon, Purple Lilacs, White Iris', and Hydrangeas off of the top of my head.

As far as herbs go I have a forest of lemon balm I'm constantly fighting, mint, and catnip.

Melissaaxaudreyy
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rainbowgardener wrote:The four foot retaining wall you can build yourself cheaper for just a bit of grunt work, from interlocking concrete blocks.

These come in many colors, sizes, styles and different ways they interlock.The ones I use just have a little lip at the back, so that it hangs over the edge of the one below. The trick to it is you HAVE to dig a trench for the bottom layer, 4" deep and then fill it with 2" of paver sand. Set the blocks in so they are half below ground and make sure they are COMPLETELY level.

Once you have the first layer set and levelled, all the rest is just stacking blocks.
I love how your projects look! Thank you. I will definitely look into that. We're pretty handy so that should be easily accomplished. Thanks again for the insight!

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rainbowgardener
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Ohh... the top picture isn't mine, just one I found off the internet. The circle gardens are mine. At my previous location I built a series of retaining walls down a hillside out of the same kind of blocks.

Here's one picture of one of those:

Image

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pinksand
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If it were my yard I would honestly take it all out and start fresh, but that's personal taste and stems from my experience with a very similar situation. I had a hedge or Rose of Sharon that was actually kept pretty tidy when we moved in and I loved it. My neighbors have a wild sloped yard full of weeds and vines but they at least used to have it all mowed down routinely. They stopped doing that a few years ago and my Rose of Sharon have become taken over by vines that I couldn't keep up with. My Rose of Sharon also spread all over the place and was a nightmare to keep pulling... babies EVERYWHERE!!! This year was the last straw for me so I cut every last one of them down. Over the past 4 years I have probably removed about 40 sizeable Rose of Sharons from my property. They're very pretty, but I decided I absolutely hate them! If you have them near where you can mow, that would help, but mine were in the middle of my garden so it was a ridiculous amount of weeding to get the babies out from between plants. In one section where I still wanted the privacy I planted Prague viburnum that have been growing really quickly! Fortunately I like my neighbors a lot so I don't mind the lack of privacy until they fill back in.

What would you ultimately like to see in the space? If it's an evergreen hedge then I'd tear everything out, and maybe start with the bamboo fencing you mentioned as a temporary solution. You could spread out the cost by waiting on the hedge plants until next spring and buying young smaller/cheaper ones since you already have your privacy with the fencing. Once the hedge is accomplishing what you want (probably a good few years down the road, depending on what you plant), you could remove the fencing or leave it there if it's still looking nice.



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