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Leyland Cypress Spacing

HEIGTH determines spacing.
The first question is how tall do you need them to grow? If a 14' row of Leyland Cypress or Thuja Green Giant will provide the privacy screen you need, you should be sure and "TOP" them at that height. To do that, you must let them grow a foot or so taller than the desired height, then just clip off the central leader, or main trunk. On evergreens, they should be "done" growing tall, and spend their energy thickening out. More height above what you need is a disadvantage for several reasons. The first is that during stress times, like a drought summer, or winter, the tree has to "decide" whether to send the moisture it does have to the upper limbs and truck or the lower limbs, it will always send the moisture to the top growth areas and starve out the lower limbs. Many people say their row of Leyland Cypress was doing fine, then "all of a sudden" this year they started showing brown on the lower needles. This is because the height reached the point relative to spacing that results in stress.
RULE of fours.
You should space the trees so the target height needed is no more than 4 times the distance between the trunks. If you need a 20' tall row to block your neighbor's house or windows, you could space as close as 5' on center. That is provided you will follow through, and when they reach 21 or 22' tall, top them back to 20' height. That means each tree will get the moisture from a 5' diameter ground area without competition from the tree beside it. It also means there will be enough room for a strong 5' diameter root system to to secure a 20' tall tree against the wind.
ZIG ZAG pattern.
This is a super solution if you can surrender some "width" of your property for the privacy screen. Let's take an example; someone needs a 30' tall privacy screen. If they use the rule of 4's, and plant a single file row, they should space at 8' on center, 4 times 8 = 32. If they are choosing to start with ten' Leyland Cypress or Thuja Green Giant, they will be 4' wide. That will leave you with 4' of air in between each tree and waiting a long time to close together. If you plant two parallel rows, with each at 8' on center, but staggered so that there APPEARS to be a tree every 4' you will have closure much quicker, yet still have the trees spaced for strength and low stress. In this case the first row should be 4' from the property line, and the second row should be 8' from the first. If tight on space, you could make the second row 6' back from the first row. One note is that the appearance of a tree every 4' is only when you are exactly perpendicular to the row. Also remember a ten foot Leyland Cypress or Thuja Green Giant may be 4 foot wide at it's widest point, but also they get skinnier as they get tall. In this situation, you still need the 8' spacing based on the rule of fours, and the zig zag pattern will get you closure much sooner than a straight line row, but if you decided on 12 foot trees, they would be 5' wide at the widest point and you would have your results sooner.
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David Watterson and his 4 sons have been growing and planting Leyland and Thuja Green Giant since 1998. We ship from GA to RI.
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