Creating woodland...

...have about half an acre of mature lawn on a south facing slope to the side of my house, between it and the public road. Currently building a driveway through it. Have enough mature garden in front of the house, not a huge fan of manicured lawns. So I have this idea of planting natural/deciduous trees in the half acre so the drive would go through woodland, screening us from the road, and "emerge" at the house.

Any suggestions what trees or mix of trees might work best? I'm in no hurry, in the sense that I don't expect mature woodland in the next year or 5. On the other hand, I'd prefer something that grows reasonably quickly so I see some results during my lifetime.

Harry Palmr

Flame Willow, Laurel Willow and hybrid poplar are all quick but the latter grow very tall - think French avenues!
Alnus glutinosa Laciniata is very attractive for it's airy canopy

macraignil

Mixed woodland would be more nature friendly so a variety of trees would be a better way to go in my opinion. There are young trees sold for forestry as whips for about a couple of euros each and these often settle in and grow faster than bigger trees that would be more expensive. Here is a link to a price list of a nursery close to where I live that has a list of trees they sell as whips and other nurseries should have something similar.
I'd include alder and hornbeam if the ground is damp and maybe beech if it is drier. Crab apple, mountain ash, white thorn and wild cherry are good for flowers and fruit for wildlife so might be good around the edges and oak, sweet chestnut and hazelnut might be good additions to provide more wildlife food in the longer term with edible nuts you might even collect some of yourself as well.
Elder and blackthorn are also nice wildlife friendly trees if you can source them.
The young trees may need some protection from hares and rabbits when they are younger if they are active in your area but I have found the hares near here have not been around since we got a couple of dogs. Sounds like a nice project and good luck with it.
Happy gardening!

magicbastarder

I planted a tiny section (40 foot by 15 foot) in my back garden a few years ago. Hazel, Holly, hawthorn, birch, blackthorn, and rowan. Packed them in quite tight - the usual guidance is roughly 1000 per acre but I wanted the canopy to close quite quickly and probably planted at double that density. It was 2014 when I planted IIRC, and the tallest trees are now over 20 foot, having been planted at about 3 foot tall.

Bill Hook

Conor74 wrote: »

...have about half an acre of mature lawn on a south facing slope to the side of my house, between it and the public road. Currently building a driveway through it. Have enough mature garden in front of the house, not a huge fan of manicured lawns. So I have this idea of planting natural/deciduous trees in the half acre so the drive would go through woodland, screening us from the road, and "emerge" at the house.

Any suggestions what trees or mix of trees might work best? I'm in no hurry, in the sense that I don't expect mature woodland in the next year or 5. On the other hand, I'd prefer something that grows reasonably quickly so I see some results during my lifetime.

Have a look at Trees on the Land (www.treesontheland.com). We planted about a quarter of an acre on the planting day in 2019 and put in a few more this year (and replaced the odd one that died!).

strandroad

This might be of interest, 500k native tree saplings to be discarded and can be bought at bargain prices:

https://www.pocketforests.ie/blog/2020/8/15/save-the-trees

So one of the largest tree nurseries in the State, None So Hardy is turning off its cold store next week which will lead to the destruction of 500,000 native trees. Their stock is “worthless” because of a backlog in native woodlands licence applications which means landowners are unable to plant these much-needed trees.

The doomed trees include alders, birches, oaks, scots pines, willows, hazels, rowans, beautiful robust trees which support a much more biodiverse range of insects and animals than many other trees. In other words they’re exactly what our environment, towns, cities, fields, margins, gardens, endangered species, pollinators and communities need.
...
None So Hardy is selling off the stock at €15 for a bag of 100 bare root trees. One hundred trees sounds like a lot but a bag is not much bigger than a shopping bag, and very light because there’s no soil.

Bill Hook

strandroad wrote: »

This might be of interest, 500k native tree saplings to be discarded and can be bought at bargain prices:

https://www.pocketforests.ie/blog/2020/8/15/save-the-trees

Very sad for the company that has to get rid of the trees but an excellent opportunity for anyone wanting to plant a bit of woodland. 100 trees sounds like a lot but our quarter acre plot has about 400 trees.

magicbastarder

unfortunately the trees aren't viable:

https://twitter.com/rayofoghlu/status/1295285283009830914

Bill Hook

magicbastarder wrote: »

unfortunately the trees aren't viable:

https://twitter.com/rayofoghlu/status/1295285283009830914

That's a pity, but better to know now than waste time planting lots of trees that would fail.

Effects

Looks like their website has crashed due to the increased interest.

SouthWesterly

strandroad wrote: »

This might be of interest, 500k native tree saplings to be discarded and can be bought at bargain prices:

https://www.pocketforests.ie/blog/2020/8/15/save-the-trees

The latest on this is that they were dead by the time it was published in the papers

blackbox

I created about an acre of open woodland in my garden. Several Birch, Scots Pine, Ash, Oak and Red Oak, one Walnut. I avoid anything with thorns. Also a couple of specimens.

They were mostly planted about 25 years ago.

Some of the birch died even when quite large but others have done really well.

Try to visualise how tall these are going to be in your garden - i.e. 50 feet and more. I like them but they definitely block the evening sun for us and they could make your house dark and block any views you might have.

You might be better going with smaller trees - rowan is one of the best, but maybe some flowereing cherries. Native cherry gorows huge. Apples can be fussy.