Monday 10 June 2013

Privacy screen in our backyard – The cedar battle

A relationship is made up of compromises; we all know that. However, a different vision for the garden can lead to some quite heated discussions; at least in our household.

You might remember that when we bought our house the first thing we did was to plant these cedar trees. I hoped that they would provide much needed privacy in our backyard. Misha wasn’t that keen on the idea so he only agreed to get a few of them. This took the cedar line less than half way along the fence. Here they are.

After two years, it has become obvious that having cedars half way along the fence doesn’t solve our privacy issue. Also, the fence line looked unfinished and it still exposed the neighbour’s unsightly pigeon coop. So, I proposed to Misha my idea: let's buy more cedars and plant them all the way along the fence. 

He didn’t like my idea at all. His vision included flowers along the fence that he had already planted. After two months of discussing, arguing, reasoning and negotiating, Misha finally agreed, with a heavy heart, to plant more cedars. We went to Home Depot to pick out the tallest cedars we could find.

Emerald cedars at Home Depot

It took us several trips to get them home as we could only fit four into our car at one time. Misha never gave up fighting for his vision; after each trip he would say "Don't you think that's enough?", but I persevered.  We planted lilies, poppies, irises, and wild flowers in front of the cedars to tone down their formal look. Here is the before...


...and after.


I love these cedars; they provide instant privacy and the neighbour's pigeon coop disappeared into the green distance. Misha gained a huge gold star in our relationship book.

Mia

  

4 comments:

  1. Misha, I have to support her on that one :).
    The After looks great... tho the Before was taken before anything else had come out in bud.

    I planted double digits of cedars in Colleen's back yard for a privacy fence. My shoulder is still suffering from digging the trench.

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  2. Haha...Thanks Rick! It was a tough battle but so worth it. I love the finished look too and Misha is warming up to it :)

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