Featured Expert
Mike Zins
Extension Horticulturist
Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
Chanhassen, MN

Q: I want a hedge for privacy, including in the winter? What types would be good choices?

A: Well the Arborvitae, this is the Pyramidal Arborvitae, the one that people commonly plant on the corners of their buildings, and it doesn't work out very well, but as a hedge like this it will make a nice screen that will be there for winter. It has been here for several years and has been pruned very nicely. You'll notice it has a nice light color compared to the Techny Arborvitae we have right here. This is a superior selection in many ways. We look at the nice dark color. It keeps this color during the winter and is wider than the other one. It tends to be a much bigger plant and is kept down at a little lower height, so this plant actually could be pruned at a much higher height if you wanted to maintain it as such.

The White Spruce hedges are going around the entire collection of hedges here at the arboretum. Here is one that's been pruned back to eight or ten feet. We maintain that quite sharply. Each year we prune about six to eight inches of the thing, so it is a rather big undertaking for something like this, but if you want a nice hedge that will maintain itself the spruce will be a tough plant for maintenance also.

The thing with the Arborvitae is that if you prune them, you want to do it during the growing season so you get rid of all those little brown tips.


images: arborvitae

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Last updated: Tuesday, February 01, 2005