Columnar Blue Spruce comes to mind. As with all evergreens, they're quite expensive - a young tree costs about $100. Also consider Fat Albert - although I've gotten lots of conflicting info on how big they grow.

It's not the dry soil that the cedars don't like - it's our bone dry winter winds. It dessicates the trees. Don't buy a cedar if you're planning to leave it out in the open. And the only cedars I recommend for Calgary are the Techny and Siberian cedars. You can try Globe cedars but they have to be in a very protected location.

I'm not going to attempt to recommend, Katz, but I am wondering if any of you Calgarians ever visit the botanical gardens at the Calgary Zoo to see what grows well there? I understand there is a wealth of information available there and you could see for yourself how big or small something is, what you do or don't like about it. My next visit to Calgary I'm definitely going to spend some time there - I'm told it's a beautiful garden.

Ehhhh.... the Zoo's botanical gardens aren't quite as useful as one would think.. A lot of imports, ornamentals.. then in the conservatory, the arid zone, humid rainforest, butterfly garden... In other words, quite a lot of what's growing there is relatively high-maintenance, lots of work to force it to grow in our conditions. The native-plants conservatory isn't due to start construction until 2010. They pride themselves on chinook-zone knowledge, sure... but suggested Brandon cedars. Looking around my little bedroom town, those just ain't thriving. Hence asking here.

Wow, I didn't know that about the zoo. Too bad, really.

I have a columnar blue spruce, Medora, and it survives a very dry, windswept area. Very slow growing, though, and possibly too short for your needs (somewhere between 12-16' mature height)

Er, a Medora is an upright juniper. Is that what you meant?

Oops - yes I meant juniper. Duh on me, LOL.

Quite right, Shazam. That's why I specified north-Calgary and outlying (I'm actually in one of the bedroom communities outside of Calgary's north limit), and mentioned my observation about the Brandons I've seen in my area. The downtown and inner-city areas are also quite a bit more sheltered, which the Brandons prefer. I'm not quite so densely urbanized, and get the north and west winds blasting pretty good XD

Pudge, the Zoo's gardens are still lovely and should still be seen. They're well chosen to keep their interest in the fall and winter months, as well as our brief growing season, and they are a fine example of what can be made to grow here. Just not so practical for us on the blasted-heaths *lol* I'll be looking forward to their native-plants conservatory, as I'm working towards a lot of native grasses in my lawn and native flowers in my gardens. What can I say, I'm a lazy gardener *lol*

Thanks for the advice on the Techny cedars. I asked around a few more sources and was pointed in the direction of the Wicheta Blue Junipers, which apparently do well enough in my area that one seller warrenties them. Spruces are good windbreaks but they're just not dense enough to be a good sound barrier. The densest spruce I've seen is the "Alberta", and apparently its like the cedars in requiring shelter from the winds (how ironic, a tree named Alberta that doesn't thrive in Alberta......) We "test-drove" a couple of Wicheta Junipers (shoved three together in a row, crouched behind them to see how much we could hear the highway XD ) and they seem to be good candidates. Pricey, alas...

Thanks for your help, all! Its muchly appreciated.
(where's Luv2gro, i'd've thought she'd've pounced me by now XD )

Le meas
-==- Katzedecimal

Oh snap. If you asked earlier I would have pointed you to Sunnyside, as they were selling almost 6 foot tall upright Junipers for $40 each (Moonglows, I think) - they were over $100 off!! I do love the upright junipers and they're very hardy here. I would certainly hope they'd be warrantied as they do just fine in Calgary. However, they do grow quite slowly.

I would not go with the Wichita Blue as they're zone 4. Moonglow Junipers look pretty much exactly the same and are hardy to Zone 3b.

I implore you to get the Golden Acre plant guide (it's free). It lists pretty well everything you can grow in Calgary and gives you fair warning about plants that need extra protection.

Try some of the Ronas around town, they've been selling their Moonglows for real cheap.

Go with spruce. Sound doesn't just travel in a straight line, otherwise you couldn't hear the kids in the rumpus room when you're in the kitchen. It's not enough to block the line of sight. You have to block upward and outward too.

Trees by themselves aren't very good sound blockers. At present I have a row of spruce, a row of balsam poplar, and a mass of willows between me and the county road. I still hear everything that goes by.

If you and your neighbors could afford it, a 15 foot high rock garden/double concrete wall would be more effective.

Or you could move.

It may be cheaper to soundproof the house. Look into retrofit strawbale construction. Not only soundproof, but high insulatating value.

Noise is a hard thing to control. I used to live in a 2 storey one block from a highway, and at night the noise of the tires on the highway kept me awake until 2 or 3 am, everynight. Yet the neighbor across the street living in a one storey (and that much closer to the highway) claimed to sleep like a rock and could not hear the highway noise, just the train (yeah, there was that too), claiming it was all her trees and shrubs planted around the back of her property, but she also had a large wide church situated behind her (between her and the highway) and larger sized homes flanking that church and overgrown 10ft shrubs between the buildings.

So at night I would go crazy listening to these noises, finally I went downstairs and opened the front door, and the noise wasn't nearly so loud at street level, where there were lots of homes and shrubs and trees, but go upstairs to the second level (and there were lots of big windows in this home too), and the noise level went up.

How is your lot situated with reference to your highway/major roadway? Is the roadway lower than your lot, or same level? I thought newer subdivisions that were developed near major arteries usually put up some sort of berm or wall, to assist in deflecting the traffic noise.

We eventually sold that home, our main reason was the NOISE, it was a beautiful older, well established (treed) neighborhood, apparently filled with lots of older people with hearing problems (I think).

Good luck with what you do. If you do go with trees, I think you'd need several staggered rows that also wrap a bit around your home to buffer the noise.

What about cedars as a sound barrier? Maybe the tall narrow hedge type. They get kinda dense.
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