Im in the same boat. I know white pine also has some use for wildlife. But I've heard there is a pine that gets a disease at about 15-20 years - Austrian? Which is what seems to be in the nuseries around here in Nebraska - don't see any white pine.

Just off the cuff thought and that would be that white pine has an open, airy growth pattern and eastern red cedar is much more dense. I would think that for a windbreak you would want the cedar, but the only factor I have looked at is branch/foliage.

My question is how much space can this windbreak take up?
White pines will spread out exponentially more than the cedars will. That could come down to cost as well, pines= more space covered.
Also, you can have instant windbreak with cedars, where as the pines will take a few years to give you what you want.
It seems to come down to the time space continuum again.
I thought that those thoughts might help.

And I might add that nothing beats the howl of a cool fall wind rushing through the tops of pines on a dark fall night. Perfect!
Good luck,
Nate

Thuja Green Giant Arborvitae grow 3-5 feet a year (up to 60 feet tall and 20 feet wide) and would make a good windbreak. One of the faster evergreens is Douglas Fir. You can get both at the Botany Store www.botanystore.com

Thanks so much!! The area to be covered, Nate, is approx 1200 sq. ft. Here's the changed list now - we are thinking of a row of evergreens that grow 40 ft or above(norway spruce and white spruce and maybe colarado blue spruce) and a row of slightly shorter conifers (eastern red cedar and white cedar). The Thuja green giant sounds really exciting - we might consider that too. I saw a picture of an american sycamore and fell in love with it ... oh well ..that's for later. The evergreens go in this fall. We'll plant the shrubs for the windbreak in Spring. And now i can't wait to hear the wind in the trees!!

The junipers and the Thuja would be a much better choice than any of the other plants. The spruce and pines will get quite tall, and the lower branches will die off if planted close together, leaving a lot of open space near the bottom of the plants - not the desired effect for a wind break.

Colorado blue spruce will not do well, long term, in the heat and humidity of Southern Indiana. Here in Minnesota, blue spruce live for no more than about 20 years before dying or looking very ragged and needing to be removed.

A good mix of native plants will be best for a good long-term wind break.

If you have any trees in the rose family near where you are going to plant your wind break - Crab apples, Hawthorns, Serviceberries, etc. - and you plant junipers, you will have both plants needed to complete the life cycle for cedar-apple rust.

I would recommend that you drive around your area and look at some of these trees that are mature and see what they look like. Planting trees close together will shade the lower parts of the plant and cause the plant to lose its lower branches.

White pine is a 100' tree at maturity, with no lower branches.
Mike

But I thought the thuja is a cedar..? Mistake?

Thuja Green Giants are a fast-growing hybrid cross between Thuja Plicata and Thuja Standishii. Winner of The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Gold Medal Plant Award 1998. US NAtional Arboretum Elite Plant.

I read this post and have some questions for my own project. I am looking for the right trees to plant for a windbreak/hide-your-neighbor's-unsightly-back-yard-break. One of the cool things I saw when passing through the Florida panhandle was very large azaleas growing all around and covering the stumps of . Don't recall what kind of trees now, but more than likely native yellow pines (my least favorite tree in the whole world). So several years ago I had the idea of planting a row of 10 azaleas with the intentions of planting trees in-between with the desire that the trees would grow up as a wind/sight break, and the azaleas would grow up together around/between the tree trunks (ie, all shrubs-trees in a single row). Well my first choice for trees didn't quite make it, but that was probably more to do with the fact they were transplants from the wild. For a second try and after reading this thread I am wondering if some type of cedar (native to my area) would be suitable, especially with the azaleas growing up underneath. Thoughts?

For zone 6 and north (and even more northerly areas of zone 7), Norway spruce is a very good choice. Contrary to an opinion I saw above, Norway spruce hold their lower limbs indefinately, as long as they get some sunlight. Some of the pines are more likely to lose theirs. As for the blue spruce--look at those growing in your area. Here in Winchester, VA there is no problem--the lower limbs remain for a long, long time, although perhaps not quite as long as on Norway spruce. Ultimately here in VA the Norway spruce ages better and seems to outlive the blue spruce.

If you want a large tree for your screen and a kind of tree where there is some good variation from tree to tree to give more visual interest, you can't beat Norway spruce.
The green giants are wonderful, but they are clones so they are all exactly alike. In some areas where you want a very formal regular effect, the green giants can't be beat, but for a yard where things can be a little more informal and a little variety is desirable, I would not like the green giants.

--Spruce

The main trouble with red-cedar and white cedar (arbor-vitae) is that they are magnets for bagworms. You really have to watch them or they can destroy your windbreak. Arbor-vitae doesn`t stand up in extreme drought that I have in south central Illinois, and red cedar often gets a blight that causes all of the lower limbs to die and make them kind of unsightly here. I would think you might have the same problems.

I am also looking into planting a windbreak. i have a couple of issues, its going to be close to the road and there are telephone lines 15-18 feet up. I was looking at diffirent hedges but I don't if there are any that will keep there leaves all winter. Does anyone have any ideas?

Swallowpond, 'cedar' is a common name for several different plants, and one of those is thuja. Every now and then, someone will complain about Latin names for plants. Confusion generated by common names is the number one reason why Latin nomenclature is so valuable. If someone says 'cedar', they might mean thuja, juniperus, or a number of other plants. If they say Thuja occidentalis, they are referring to one and only one plant species.

+oM

It's best to restrict the use of the name 'cedar' to species in the genus Cedrus - that way, all confusion is avoided

Resin

Go for the mixes. Norway Spruce would be the best Spruce for a non-varied screen for the Nebraska poster and the Indiana poster and definitely the most attractive, solid screen. Don't forget to add some Oriental Spruces as well (Picea orientalis). Picea omorika (Serbian Spruce) are very attractive as well. A mix of Spruces only would be an incredible sight. Then again so would a solid screen of Weeping Alaskan Cypress (Chamaecyparis nootkatensis 'Pendula')

The northern posters might also consider:
Pinus koraiensis
Picea engelmanii
Pinus peuce
Abies nordmanniana
Pinus cembra (very slow)
Chamaecyparis nootkatensis

To answer the above assumption which is correct by the way, Pinus nigra (Austrian Pine) is widely sold in the Midwest and is not a good choice for a climate that has together, both humid and hot summers.

Dax

About 15 years ago I ordered some pine seedlings from the forestry dept, one kind was a Virginia and is gorgeous. I wish to plant some more but have been unable to find any. Anybody know of them.

Pinus virginiana (Virginia Pine, a.k.a. Scrub Pine) is what you are looking for.

Resin

I would be careful about this "Ginny pine." They are not called "scrub pine" for nothing. They can be attractive trees, especially older ones grown in the open and if they have a lot of pruning as they grow. But they are not really a good ornamental windbreak tree.

One of the problems that can make them especially unattractive in some applications is the way the lower branches die and then curve or curl downwards, making the tree look sick. In groves they grow very thin and scraggly and as forest stands tend to stagnate, meaning that they compete with each other in a way that retards the growth of all the trees. Often the foliage can seem thin, and this effect is made worse by the relatively short pine needles.

I have never seen one deliberately planted as an ornamental, although, as I suggested, in the open with an owner dedicated to a real pruning regimen, they can succeed as ornamentals. The primary use I see them put to locally is for pulpwood--they very seldom grow to real sawlog size around here. But they do reproduce very freely and are good for watershed protection on poor soils where other treees do not grow well.

--Spruce

Well it is a large, full pine so maybe it was miss marked. Thanks for the info.

"Well it is a large, full pine so maybe it was miss marked"

Can you get a close-up photo of a shoot and cone? Post it here, it'll be an enjoyable challenge to identify it!

Resin

*****
Spruceman says:
I would be careful about this "Ginny pine." They are not called "scrub pine" for nothing. They can be attractive trees, especially older ones grown in the open and if they have a lot of pruning as they grow. But they are not really a good ornamental windbreak tree.
*****

Virginia pines in good soil do much better than in the usual poor soil/competitive sites where they frequent (same w/Table mountain pine). One VA pine just up the road in an open lawn is an attractive, central-leadered pyramid 65-70' tall, 40' spread & 1.5'+ dia. But these won't make good "screens".

I just made some grafts (2 grafts on each of 3 rootstocks) of VA pine -- thanks for the instructions from some posters here. The scions came from a small (25') but markedly "weeping" specimen along the MD interstate. I shouldn't even be mentioning it until/if they take. :) The fourth rootstock specimen that I didn't graft onto & will plant has unusually dense, short & dark-green needles -- like a Spruce pine.

quote Beng: "One VA pine just up the road in an open lawn is an attractive, central-leadered pyramid 65-70' tall, 40' spread & 1.5'+ dia. But these won't make good "screens"."

Beng, would you be able to post a pic of the tree you are referring to? I am considering one of these also, and would love to see one that is that tall (and also why it wouldn't make a good screen). I plan to plant on an open lawn as well, but to the side where a screen would be needed. Thanks!

hibiscusfreak, I promise to get a pic of it soon. It's in a backyard, so the pic might be from 200+ ft away. And I looked at it more closely today driving by, and it's more like ~60' x 35'.

It is nice to see so much enthusiams for Virginia pine, but if I were looking for a nice conifer to plant for an ornamental, this would be near the end of the list, unless I was a collector and had everything else. But it is native to a wide area and in that area if you want native trees, I guess this is a good tree.

For a good specimen, I know of one much larger than the one described by beng. In Lacy woods park in Arlington, VA, to the west of the woodland growing in a semi-open location is a Virginia pine that is about 80 feet tall and almost two feet in Diameter. There is another one not quite so large growing nearby. They are reported to grow up to 120 feet on very good sites, but I have never seen anything approaching this.

I don't know how old this tree is, but I would guess something like 70 years. But generally these are one of the shorter lived pine trees.

Well, if you like this kind of tree, that is good--I love diversity, but on my 8 acres here in Winchester I don't think I have room for one, and I may have something like 95 kinds of trees so far and am still going.

I guess I am posting this because I don't want too many people to decide to plant this tree instead of all the other possibilities and then be somewhat disappointed. I am usually a defender of out-of-favor trees, but in this case I advise a little caution before one becomes too enthusiastic.

--Spruce