Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance. Whether you're looking to create a little more privacy or block an unsightly view or perhaps add some structure to your balcony, your garden or your outside space, screening plants can completely transform what you're looking at through the back window. And gardener Mary Staunton is with me. Great to have you with us. Hi, Clare.
How are you? Will we define what screening plants are? Like what exactly are we talking about here?
Chapter 2: What are screening plants and how can they transform your garden?
OK, so screening plants are those plants that grow tall enough screen out a view that you may not particularly want to see. So whether it's a garden that's overlooking you or a window from another house that's overlooking you or just a very ugly view that you don't particularly want to wake up to every morning and be looking at. So there's kind of lots of different options
the cheaper options and the more expensive options.
So will I go through them? Well, we'll go through them. But the other thing I was thinking about, if you're looking at getting screening plans in or a reason why you might want them, is to provide some shelter. Do they work in that regard from wind?
They do. And they work, you know, when you think about it, most people would consider putting up fencing, you know, like the traditional fencing that you would put up, lattice ones or whatever. And the problem with walls and fencing is they create a thing called an eddy, which when the wind hits a wall or a solid piece of something, it goes over the top and then creates this swirl.
So you're better off in some instances, if it's quite a windy site, having the protection of trees to slow down the wind coming into the garden. And then you can plant other plants behind that screening, if you like. So it works quite effectively in For instance, you know, gardens beside the sea or just places that tend to get really windy.
So it's a very good idea to have screening plants instead of like a solid block wall or something like that.
Now, when you're looking for a screening plant, you want something that's going to grow quickly and you will find those things in garden centres, but you've got to be really careful because they go wild very quickly too.
They do. And the problem is when you're looking at them in garden centres, they look lovely, you know, innocuous looking plants. And then suddenly over, well, not suddenly, but over a period of time, they become out of control trees that you need to get somebody in to, you know, put manners on. And that costs an awful lot of money.
So ideally, you don't want to be going for something like a Leylandii or Leyland Cypress because they do grow really quickly. And if you're not honest with cutting them back yearly, then you will find that they'll get out of control. And they tend to get quite wide as well.
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Chapter 3: How do screening plants provide shelter from the wind?
The houses that have been built now, they've been built on smaller plots, but they're taller. So with that, you are being overlooked. So, you know, it's an instant fix. If you have the time, it's a lot easier and a lot less expensive to grow, you know, plants like the big one at the moment is Portuguese laurel. I suppose if you're looking at putting in a hedging,
hedge or you or native taxes, something like that. Slower growing, easier to manage, but will take a long time to get up to that height. You know, the 500 euro height of a pleached tree. That's the only difference, but they are much, much cheaper.
OK, so tell me about why people are sometimes keen to use a thing called running bamboo, but then they get very worried about it when it starts to go a bit wild in the garden.
You see, a bugbear of mine, Clare, is that they're not, it's not that they're not properly, you know, that maybe there's a little bit written on the sign on these bamboos and you really need a microscope to get, to have a look at it and see is it a running one or is it a clump forming bamboo.
If it's a running bamboo, we learned, when we were in college, we learned kind of that a running bamboo is
leptomorph so it leaps everywhere you know it goes along underground and it ends up in the neighbors that's the simplest that into your driveway into your grass in your front garden it goes everywhere yeah dreadful absolutely dreadful and then there is the one it's um the clump forming one they like a little bit more shade they stay pretty much in their clump
And if you think of an iris, you know, those beautiful irises that are out now. And they have kind of like really twisted kind of roots at the bottom. And then they send up this lovely shoot with the iris. That's what's happening underground in a clump forming bamboo. Really thick stems. And then they come out another little bit and send up a shoot.
But it's really slow and they stay in a very compact shape. growth habit.
So they're the ones that you want, clump forming bamboo.
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Chapter 4: What should you consider when choosing a screening plant?
cut your own head, you're going to have to get somebody in to do it. And then it becomes a problem because, you know, we went back to the cold caller thing. You know, you have to know who's coming into your garden to do the work.
But I would suggest you get something as easy to look after and maintain as a privet hedge, a grizzly linear hedge, a Portuguese laurel, something like that, that you can control easy enough yourself. That's the trick.
And the Acacia that you mentioned as another one that tends to go mad when it's left to its own devices, that's banned in parts of France, is it?
It's banned in parts of France. You see, as climate changes... Things that never really seeded well before, or they had the sterile seed, are now producing viable seed just because of the climate change, the hotter summers, that sort of thing. And then they become a nuisance and they seed everywhere.
So sometimes, a bit like the case of the Elbassa is bound in some parts of France, not all parts, but in some parts where it does really well in very sunny, you know, much more sunnier climates than ours. And it seeds everywhere. And they look nice, you know, little ferny kind of things on the ground. But then they become big trees. And then it costs money to get them taken out.
So that's the problem. But if you look at New Zealand, in parts of New Zealand, in Auckland in particular, you have agapanthus that we love. You know, agapanthus africanus and all the lovely agapanthus. And they're not allowed to grow them. They're on the kind of the banned list. and some council or some parts of Auckland. So, you know, what we consider okay now may be a weed in years to come.
We'll decide if we're not into it anymore.
Yeah, we're not into it anymore, exactly. I'm going to be in bloom actually this
when is it it's on the bank holiday weekend yes it's the weekend after this one so you're on the Thursday Sunday the 31st that's when you'll be there yeah I'll be there first time ever talking on the garden stage with the great and the good so a new experience but you'll be taking questions there as well you'll be inundated Mari with questions screening plants and all the rest
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