The plan has no measurements on it that I can see, so we can’t tell whether those numbers of trees will be crowded or not.

could we see a pic or 2 of what is there now ... or the space at least ...

picea pungens can get huge.. how far are they from the corners??

ken

There is no scale on the plan, but the designer was able to tell sizing with a ruler. Not sure if there is a standard but I could figure it out. The arbs were planned 3 ft at maturity and the spruce 12 ft at maturity. Or I could just go and measure the beds if that was the question.

@ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5 Here are some pics. I didn’t pick the original landscaping and it just got way overgrown so I had it all hacked. I currently have a longer bed on the right but want to shorten it because these beds are a lot of maintenance. I mostly want privacy in the corners so I’m not seeing 5 houses down. It would be a baby spruce so maybe a bit smaller? I did previously have 2 spruce in the corners if you can see the stumps still. I had intended to keep them but the bottoms were pretty dead and I didn’t think it would look good if I got everything else new and left the old pines.

Left - not sure why it keeps rotating it....

Right

thuja/arbs and picea pungens [PP]/blue spruce do not stop growing at some magical height ... as trees ... they keep growing for you lifetime ...

are there any suggested cultivar names associated with the plan.. that indicate limited growth potential??? .. why do you keep saying baby PP

and.. btw .. your pungens got ugly because of a needle cast issue which is endemic in MI these days .. and so will the new ones.. sooner or later ... though i love blue plants.. i might suggest anything else.. in out MI ...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=picea+pungens+needle+cast&t=ffcm&ia=web

you would be hard pressed as you drive around to actually find a PP not affected ...

and of course.. we have out 3 or 4 months of ground freeze.. that slows down annual growth ...

grew up in livonia.. now out in tecumseh.. what city you in.. just out of curiosity ...

ken

@planttrr I will check that out! Thank you so much for the suggestion.

@ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5 I’m 100% not a plant person so I’m just going by the info from my designer. I thought “baby” blue spruce were smaller. My designer did say that you can lop off the arborvitae if I wanted to keep them at a certain height. Not sure about the yellow ribbon variety because of their conical shape, I assume I’d have to do a little shaping. I told her I’ll probably be here 10 years so if anything were to get super big I’ll probably be gone. The previous spruces probably had a good 10-15 years before they started degrading.

That is definitely the issue I had with my spruces. They tried cutting out the bottoms but it went up so high thet it looked kind of ridiculous so I made a last second decision to just scrap them. Any other pines that are a little better for this area or measures that can be taken to prevent needle cast?

I‘m in Macomb Township on the east side.

Take a field trip to Gee Farms in Stockbridge to get a great education in all the conifers available for you to choose from.

tj