windbreak

[bertie]

I am visiting our house in dept 11 in March and want to plant some bushes as a windbreak for our terrace. We are in a valley and the wind can whip down the terrace blowing books, towels etc away. We want to create a bed of bushes about 3m from the edge of the terrace and pool. The soil is pure clay and we need bushes that have growth near to the ground. As they are near to the pool it would be preferable if they are mainly evergreen but not leylandii.

Our main problem is that we are not there all the time but could arrange for someone to water them once a week when we are away.

Any suggestions would be appreciated as I am not a gardener.

[a.foreman]

A fence

[Tresco]

It's going to be a while (3 or 4 years) before any hedging plants form an effective windbreak.

I wish I'd considered this more carefully before buying hedging for our boundary. A chain link type fence with fast growing evergreen or semi evergreen climbers planted at intervals would probably have been much quicker in giving cover.  This is what i'd do, if I had the chance again, even though it would have been more expensive at the outset. Rustic poles with with strong wires for the climbers would be considerably cheaper.

Another point to bear in mind is that evergreen plants do drop their leaves, they just do it gradually over the whole year, rather than all at once as Autumn comes.

Alone, a slatted fence like the one in Andy's avatar would be ok as a windbreak, but not any form of 'solid' type fencing.

tresco

[Fantine<br><br><br><br>Susie]

Bamboo would be an option. We have a very large bamboo 'bush' near our pool and get no leaf drop into the pool. There are many varieties to chose from, different heights, shapred leaves, colour of stems etc.

[Tresco]

That's a good suggestion Fantine, as bamboo is evergreen, attractive, and fast growing.

If the poster chooses it, just be very careful not to choose a variety that grows to 40ft high and/or spreads indefinately.

Sorry, my books are buried at the moment so can't advise specifically, but one drawback with all bamboos is that they need a lot of water.

tresco