Look at Holly trees. There are many named landscape selections.

The first question that comes to my mind is, if you miss those trees, why not just replant the same species? They seem to do very well in your area.

We cut them down for a reason, needles in pool area and into pool. absolutely cannot replant them.

White Pine has a number of disadvantages in this scenario. They break easily in heavy snow and wind. They are currently under lethal attack by a pine beetle I think. Big ones drop carpet quality amounts of needles. Not pool friendly.

Green Giant thujas are a perfectly reasonable choice for this application. They grow fast, they grow big and they are inexpensive and very widely available. And while they are commonly referred to as "arborvitae", they are completely different from American arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis) and are a hybrid between two other species - T. plicata and standishii. They tend to be far more deer resistant than any Am. arborvitae and rarely suffer the same plague of bagworms.

You WILL get debris from these - it is impossible to grow anything that doesn't produce some sort of periodic shedding of parts :-)

btw, plants do not make soil acidic, so don't blame the pines!! If your soil is acidic, then it is the result of the underlying mineral content.

Chris CNC- thanks for backing me up, plus if you have allergies like we do eastern white pines can be pretty brutal, can often see the pollen storm after a gust of wind. Developers put them in all over around here as they grow quickly and easily, but they really don’t mix with a pool of pool furniture.

Hollies are my favorite tree probably, neighbor down the street has most beautiful american holly that i admire everyday as I pass. And I plant to plant one for privacy elsewhere. I have several varieties in my yard but few are deer resistant and few grow quickly.

If I go just a little bit south crepe myrtles get big, southern magnolias are big and dense, and hollies grow better, but it’s harder here. Nellie stevens grow quickly, but my neighbors is sparse at best. When i was a less informed I planted two dragon ladies in the pictured spot behind fence as they were supposedly deer resistant, but it was basically fully eaten, the smaller one oddly wasn’t touched, they’re real slow though. Also this winter had japanese holly eaten, china girl, and a blue one.

gardengal48, thanks for the encouragement. As deer got out of control in New jersey in the past few decades I’d see arborvitae’s half eaten at every house i pased and they turned a lot of people like me off to them totally. But I’ve admired some green giant screens near me over the past 5 years and became open to them. I suggested the common eastern red cedar to a nursery owner friend and she said just go green giant. I know eastern red cedars aren’t elegant but they’re simple and native so I figured I’d inquire.

Thanks so much for comment about bag worms, i knew that may have gotten lost in mix of my long post but i really appreciate you quelling my fears.

And good to know about the acidity, my brother got me a soil testing kit this christmas so now I won’t be too shocked ahead of time when I see that soil isn’t ridiculously acidic. Thanks again GardenGal

I wouldn't automatically write off deciduous shrubs for that location. They tend to reach a good size quickly, can be pruned/reshaped/rejuvenated if they get too big or awkward, and are much more deer resistant than everygreens simply because they aren't green when the deer are most hungry. They are also often quite twiggy at the top, so will provide unexpected privacy in the winter.

mad_gallica, thanks for the reply, I just think with the project that was felling and chopping of some 10 fully grown pines behind that fence I can’t replant anything that will drop much of anything into pool area even if it’s nicer than pine needles. I considered everything from very tall trellis and vines, to building 5ft high basically scaffolding and putting grasses in planters on them, to extending the fence higher (a real difficulty and probably insufficient anyway), to a decorative fabric attached to posts (would look bad and rude no matter the fabric), to those types of hedged deciduous trees above fences i see pictures of on pinterest in fancy peoples yards. I can think of a type extremely narrow deciduous tree that provides privacy by its wood in the winter but again I think it wouldn’t get by the committee of family i’d have to run it by and wouldn’t be beat anyway. hemlock would be nice but not sure of growth rate and i know there’s a disease it’s pretty susceptible to

I think the idea of a broadleaf evergreen is a better choice - except I wouldn't pick one with spiny foliage. Viburnum x pragense makes a nice dense plant around 10 feet tall - which is probably about all you need to screen the view from where those deck chairs are. No bagworm problem, and not much even to worry about leaf-wise.

Another interesting plant that gets bigger - but more summer bang for the buck - is one of the evergreen Magnolia virginiana types. Great summer flowers and fragrance, they are quite happy in soils like yours and will add a lemony zing to pool season.

Viburnum Valley, thanks for the comment. I like broadleaf evergreens, I planted four skip laurels on other part of property in part shade, excited to see if they take off this year. I think green giants for the stretch i’m talking about is still a more guaranteed and quicker solution than viburnum and magnolia, but my uncle uses viburnum for length of his property and id be happy to use too in place in picture nearer the air conditioner, as that area could use coverage too but not so much height, immediately or down the road.

I said in my post i needed height for 7 fence posts but i looked again and i believe it’s only 6, so for the green giants im looking at just 30ft of probably 60-80 ft that could use greenery. I’ll have more fun with the broadleaf and other stuff I do in the other places but the green giants seem most practical at the moment for what I need.

Check out Yoshino or Radicans Cryptomeria if they are on the outside of the fence. If planted on the inside of the fence, you might consider pleached (limbed up) broadleaf evergreens.

Dig Doug’s -I have 4 yoshinos, they’re hard to find, if I can find them they’re larger in burlap and expensive. also mine are pretty sparse in the winter. could order online but i try not to do that. Radicans seem more narrow and dense but again hard to source

If you check in the Princeton area you should be able to find 15 gal container stock.

my usual caveat is NEVER plant all of one thing ... get this .... you end up cutting down all of one thing for some reason.. like you did here ...

diversify your planting .... and in 10 or 20 years.. if something fails for whatever reason.. hopefully the rest will still be there ... and you wont be starting over .... again ...

GGs grow like the wind once fully established.. a year or 2 after proper planting ... and smaller transplants get over stresses faster and grow faster over a given time period as compared to very expensive larger trees .... soooo.. buying large may not be the most efficient way to go ....

ken

While reading all comments my thought was just what @ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5 just said - but I wasn’t thinking about the same reason he stated - which I do also agree with. My thought was why not mix up a staggered row of evergreens with a couple of flowering deciduous trees or even just colorful non flowering smaller trees just for the nice look that would provide? I’m not clear on just how much of that property outside the fence is yours or how far away from fence you’re planting though you said planting ”against the fence”. I can’t see where he white pines were from looking at the ground or fence…all traces gone!

houzz://user/ken_adrian thanks for reply, If I had knew of a good option that would work in the 30-35 ft length I need height that i could mix with the green giants I would, but it seems complicated by the fact that I’d need quick height out of it still and it would need to compete with the fast growing green giants which would worry me more. I could imagine planting skip laurels further down the fence at about the 5th or 6th fence post as i wouldn’t need coverage from neighbors second story windows, but it would still be 5 in a row of one tree and a a few in a row of another, and not a one to one switch off.

KW- thanks for reply

1. is there a way i can reply directly to someone so they know i’m replying to them other than just typing their name?

2. I have 10ft of my yard outside that fence, we ground the stumps so you can’t see, they were pretty close to the neighbors property, developers put them in or maybe previous owners.

so basically i’m not looking to line the entire side yard and fence with green giants, but I do think to accomplish goal of achieving 20-30 ft of quick evergreen height green giants might be one of best bets, I could alternate them with cryptomeria if i can find them in smaller pots. Not sure if they’d compete fairly with each other or not.

I also looked again and realize I only would need 5 green giants, one starting a foot left of first fence post (if looking at picture from inside pool area at my neighbors house), and then one on each post for 4 posts, then I don’t need height at all really.

So i’m not sure if that satisfies peoples apprehensions of planting same plant in a row, I doubt it does, but again i’m not sure my other options.

@William NJzone7 The only way I know of to tag a responder with a reply is for the OP (you) to use the ”Thank” button available to only the OP. That generates an email notice to poster if they’ve set it up in their profile. Otherwise, just using ‘@‘ + choosing poster name from drop down as I did in this post with your name, alerts poster that reply is directed to them. Either way, any activity on posts one responds to is listed in the notification bell icon at top of Houzz discussion page. Whew! Long answer!

I missed that you said planting border outside fence is 10’ wide. Sounds like the GG’s are best suited for your need. I looked them up for mature size & though Giants they are, they are shorter & narrower than the white pines you took out. But, the GG width - at base - is 12’ - 20’ so I’d increase the space between them beyond the 6’ I’m guessing your fence panels are & for sure plant them in middle of 10’ width. Seems like a solid view block really isn’t needed for the neighbors upstairs windows views - those are probably bedroom windows too. Theyhave their own trees at lower window height.

"So i’m not sure if that satisfies peoples apprehensions of planting same plant in a row, I doubt it does, but again i’m not sure my other options."

Their apprehension is theirs and you do NOT have to share it:-) Hedges and other privacy screen plantings are most often multiples of the same plant so this is not an unusual or uncommon approach. If given proper cultural care after planting, it would be extremely unusual for some mass plague to wipe them all out. If one tree goes, just replace it....with the same or another species. It is really not that big of a deal and you do not need to buy into others' paranoia.

Thank you all for the recommendations, we will definitely look at the proposals at our leisure.

@KW as you can maybe see the @ thing isn’t working for me, using the app on my iphone as the site was constantly locking me up, the app isn’t much better though.

Yeah I think I’ll go spacing wider than 6 feet, which only means i’ll need about 4, not sure if the seller i was contacting would be interested in selling below a $300 minimum but doesn’t matter, I can find them most places.

Gardengal once again you are the best, plus I’m realizing I only need 4 or a max of 5, so it won’t be devastating no matter what issues may occur. I checked out the nursery near me that uses green giants for privacy of their machine operations area. While I wish there was better info out there on the deer resistance and general success of the narrower american pillar arborvitae, all roads keep leading back to the tried and true green giant. Thanks again