Coastal windbreak - opinions?

[Arbgirl]

Evening everyone:001_smile:

 

What species would you guys recommend for windbreak planting in a coastal area?

 

Safety, low cost maintenance, and aesthetics are all considerations.

 

Would be interested to hear your recommendations

 

I would like to use wildlife friendly trees if possible

 

 

(yes, I know, I dont want much, eh!?)

[Steve Bullman]

i believe tamarisk is the usual

[ben lightfoot]

I have seen holm oaks around coastal areas would give good shelter all year round and fairly low maintenance too.

[ad15]

everyone round here uses the stripey numbers from the supermarket..

[Giles Hill]

How big does it need to be?

 

Around here (East Anglian coast) Tamarisk and Euonymus japonicus are perhaps the most often used to make hedges / low wind breaks. Corsican pine and holm oak are probably the most often used for tree belts. Holm oak can also make a decent hedge. None of them are that great in themselves for wildlife - the pines probably directly support the most different species - but the shelter they provide can be an important factor to the habitat areas beneath or behind them.

[Arbgirl]

They need to be tall (very exposed windy site)

 

High target areas around all trees

[Gareth Dalzell]

We've had great success with the pines mentioned earlier, but also to get protection at the lower level Elaeagnus ebbingei. We have this planted first line sea defence and in some very coastal exposed areas and it will make 2-3m and nurse up the trees.

We have also tried Quercus ilex but its a bit slow and tends to get scorced.

 

Around the harbour estate (not sea defence) we have Quercus palustris growing strongly which were planted at 30-35's - out of 296 we lost 2. They have now been in about 15years

[scuff]

had good results with sea buckthorn

[Big 'Ammer]

Monterey cypress.

[tommer9]

In cornwall (about as windy as any coastal area) hedges are often euonymous and tamarisk, but tamarisk isnt much good as a wind break. In your casde, needing height, then we also have ALOT of q.ilex (holm oak) that survives the salt laden winds, and cupressus macrocarpa, which also does. The only problem with cupressus is that in its native environment (monterey bay area) they are stunted from poor soils. Here they tend to shoot up to around 130' easily, then fall over. Laterals are also very prone to longitudinal splitting from having lots of end weight on the branches, so they may niot be termed as truly low maintainance. If you want a tall thik hedge type of shelter, then had you thought of, dare i say it, leylandii. It is a cross between nootka and monterey cypress, so should survive salt and wind. It is not low maintainance though.