BLOG: Drive-By Mom Loves Leyland Cypress Trees

The roads of Severna Park are lined with many types of fences, hedges, trees, rocks and bushes that serve as barriers between the houses and the roads.  I have been studying them as I drive the kids to school and back, because I live on a busy road and this spring I have to decide which type of barrier I am going to invest in that will give me the most "block for my buck". 

I love all the varieties of fences from picket to plank, and was going to do a "Vote for the Nicest Fence in Severna Park" blog, but I am really leaning toward a very effective evergreen, The Leyland Cypress. 

Check out the interesting history behind this sneaky conifer.  

According to Wikipedia, "The Leyland Cypress, × Cupressocyparis leylandii (syn. Callitropsis × leylandii), often referred to as just Leylandii, is a fast-growing evergreen tree much used in horticulture, primarily for hedges and screens. Even on sites of relatively poor culture, plants have been known to grow to heights of 15 metres (49 ft) in 16 years.[1] Their rapid, thick growth means they are sometimes used to enforce privacy, but such use can result in disputes with neighbours whose own property becomes overshadowed.[2]

In 1845, the Leighton Hall, Powys estate was purchased from the Corbett family of Shropshire by Liverpool banker Christopher Leyland. In 1847, he gave it to his nephew John Naylor (1813–1889) as a wedding present, who then proceeded to rebuild the house and estate at a reputed cost of £275,000, plus an additional £200,000 on the industrial farm technology.[3]

Naylor commissioned Edward Kemp, a pupil of Sir Joseph Paxton, to lay out the gardens, which included Redwoods, Monkey Puzzle Trees and two disparate Pacific coast North American species of conifers in close proximity to each other in the estates Park Wood:

• Monterey Cypress, Cupressus macrocarpa (syn. Callitropsis macrocarpa) from California
• Nootka or Alaskan Cypress, Callitropsis nootkatensis (syn. Cupressus nootkatensis, Xanthocyparis nootkatensis, Chamaecyparis nootkatensis)

The two parent species would not likely cross in the wild as their natural ranges are more than 400 miles apart, but in 1888 the hybrid cross occurred when the female flowers or cones of Nootka Cypress were fertilised by pollen from Monterey Cypress.[4]"

Thanks, Mr. Leyland, for shipping the children of your newly wed trees over to America. Other than investing in more privacy fence across the front of the house, I haven't come up with any better ideas.  I am very interested in advice from anyone who has planted and is either enjoying, or hating their Leyland's.  And, where is the best place to get them as fairly mature trees?

Thanks in advance.