Plants do very little to stop sound. You need a wall if your goal is to stop sound.

I doubt the tree cares if it's growing over a shed. But, tree branches might fall on the shed and it might be difficult to prune the branches over the shed. If you don't care about growing over the shed, I suggest an arborvitae. Like Green Giant or Steeplechase. They're evergreen and grow fast. They're basically very tall narrow bushes.

A pic or two of the area might help.

tj

minimum winter temp predictions are useless for us.. thats all zone is..

tell us where you are.. big city name...

my 20 year old green giants are 20 feet wide by 30 tall.. do you have 5 acres for this tree line.. if space is limited.. green giants are NOT an option..

tree time is counted in decades ...it will take 10 years to do anything towards your goal... short of spending hundreds of thousands to have huge trees trucked in ..

NOTHING called 'fast growing' is going to shave time off this equation ...

trees will diffuse traffic sounds.. and out fo sight out of mind is a big part of that ... its one of those things where if you think it will work. it probably will ...

the norway maple is a ho0rrible water hog.. and it will take some good attention to proper watering on your transplants for the first year or 3... its just not going to be a plant and forget thing is all i mean ...

plz provide the pix requested.. and big city location...

ken

@ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5 You need 5 acres to plant a green giant? I have about 20 in a line that's maybe 120'x8'.

LOL!! Ken is prone to exaggeration :-)) And a few factual inaccuracies.

Thuja Green Giant can be grow pretty much anywhere in USDA zone 5 and up and are not really picky about soil conditions or summer humidity. So a specific location is unnecessary.

If they are properly planted and cared for, they can put on significant annual growth - 3 feet or more - so effective screening can be accomplished rather quickly. Depending on the starting size, a lot sooner than 10 years! Nor do they necessarily gobble up a lot of real estate. You can shear them into quite a compact and dense hedge if you like.

And kidhorn's statement that plants do almost nothing to deflect sound is correct. The only thing that will successfully deflect sound is a solid surface...like a wall. I have a 150' wide greenbelt at the back of my garden filled with an assortment of large native conifers and various tall undergrowth (you can't walk through it without a machete!!) and you can still very clearly hear lawn mowers, blowers and kids playing/dogs barking on the other side.

I think pics of the space would be needed for specific plant suggestions.

Thanks everyone! We are located in Armonk New York. Here are some pictures of the space (and shed lol). there are three thuja trees planted near thr shed already but thy seem to be dying from the bottom and not sure if we should keep them. There is a solid fence agsin most of this side of the yard, that kind of slopes down into a more woodsy area where it becomes a chain-link fence (can kind of see where the chain link fence starts in the first photo and second photo is a pic of the area itselr (the area has standing water from aroind december to may) which is my best guess on why there isnt a solid fence or many trees. The last picture is what the area in the first pic kind of looks like when the maple tree leaves come in (the Norway maple is in the pic too)- very shady.

I realize that screening trees won’t block out all the noise but could def help with making it feel better lol… the wood fence is around 6-7 feet tall but i think due to the position or thr road, we can still see a decent number of cars in the distance. And also looking for any advice on what we can do to best mitigate the sound even if it’s 100%. Would our best bet be to look for hedge trees that are taller to grow along the wood fence or would it be more effective to try to block the gap between the fence and the ground with something like shrubs (or other material thats not a plant)? Not sure if the wood fence has a gap to prevent rot but fee like a lot of the car wheel noise would be coming from there. There is also probably a lot of noise coming from the swampy shady back area with the chain linked fence but also not sure what to do there. Any solid fence that could sit 4 months in standing water or anyway to have evergreen screening trees survive?

Sorry that turned into a lot and advice is greatly appreciated!

" there are three thuja trees planted near thr shed already but thy seem to be dying from the bottom and not sure if we should keep them "

Why are they dying?

I'd be figuring out what went wrong with my existing Thuja before I brought in more. Green Giants could make for the same issues if you don't correct your problem.

Here, about a hour and a half up the Taconic from you, lindera benzoin and winterberry are the shrubs that grow wild in flooded woods. They aren't evergreen, but that is a hard ask, and I'd recommend seriously reconsidering how much screening you need during the winter. Lindera can be tricky to source, but winterberry is common.

The most common problem locally with arborvitae is deer.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! @cearbhaill (zone 6b Eastern Kentucky) i think the bottom of the Thuja is eaten by deer. Hoping that it will come back if I use some deer spray

Deer pressure in Armonk is too great to bother with deer spray, snd arborvitaes eont grow back if there is no green. Remove them. Go to Rosedsle Nursery in Hawthorne snd ask them to come advise on a plsm snd give you a price on on planting guarsnteed trees.

" i think the bottom of the Thuja is eaten by deer. Hoping that it will come back if I use some deer spray "

They won't regrow those bottom limbs- that style Thuja is called 'deer pruned' and yes they will do the same thing to the Green Giants.

Got it, great to know and thanks! @kitasei2 will check out that nursery!

Green Giants are not the same as American arborvitae or Thuja occidentalis cultivars. They are a hybrid between western red cedars (Thuja plicata) and Thuja standishii (Japanese arborvitae), neither of which are overly appetizing to deer. Here, where the western red cedars are native, deer almost never touch them because of the high levels of chemical compounds that make these trees decay and pest resistant also make them much less palatable to deer browsing.

Of course deer predation can happen if other food sources are unavailable. And different deer species have different appetites based on regionality. Our native blacktailed deer will munch up American arborvitaes without question but generally avoid the western red cedars and any Green Giants.

Armonk deer love Green Gisnts. Trust us.

My green giant are never eaten, but deer like to rub their antlers on them when young. I've lost a couple from that. I'm surprised to hear they get eaten in some places.

Thanks everyone! i was doing some research and it seems like the western res cedar is supposed to be more deer resistant than the greek giant (and also shade tolerant), so sounds like that would be my best option by the norway maple?