# New Yard with 69 Italian Cypress Trees



## ZeonCypress

Hello Everybody! I'm new to the forum but soaking up a ton of knowledge from here lately and I appreciate the time and effort everyone is willing to offer. This is truly a great source for anything yard related. Thank you!

I wanted to share with you my project this summer. I purchased a new home last year in a residential community in a outside of Austin, TX. Housed are on mostly 1/3 to 1/2 an acre so they are pretty close with neighbors in the back yard. I can see my neighbor sitting on his couch from my couch and I end up keeping my blinds closed all the time. So I decided to create a hedge to create some decorative privacy and planted 67 Italian Cypress trees 28" apart along the fence in all areas where my neighbors were visible. Also planted 2 Tiny Tower Italian Cypress trees in my front flower bed. Knowing these trees need good drainage (and my yard is heavy black clay with poor drainage) I decided to put a French Drain in at the same time along the entire fence perimeter between the fence and the trees. At the same time I killed my cheap common Bermuda and resodded with Zeon Zoysia. Attached are pictures I took this morning after I mowed. Everything was installed only 7 weeks ago. So I have a couple questions and anyone's advise would be appreciated.

Questions:
1. How do you think it looks being 7 weeks from planting trees and sod?
2. I have my cypress on a irrigated line drip under the weed barrier and stones. I water about 3 gallons of water per tree every 5 days. Is that enough? Too much? I have had some leaves browning so I increased to current water schedule and it seems to be not getting worst. 
3. Should I fertilize my trees? If so, what should I use?
4. I'm watering the grass everyone 4 days and the yard is getting about 3/4-1" of water. Is that enough? Too much? Also, it hasn't rained an inch since they installed everything and daily temps range between 99-105 degrees everyday.
5. Does my grass look established enough to use a pre-emergent this fall? 
6. My yard is a little wavy (washboarding) I have a new jd 260sl reel mower. Cut at 7/8", am I doing something wrong to create the wavy look?

Thanks again for any help in advance!


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## ram82

never seen that many packed together.it will definitely screen out neighbor,but may create a couple problems.you will have bad air flow that may cause lots of death,don't know if competition for water will keep them compact or hurt them.ive seen redwoods planted close and they stay compact and do fine.im curious how this turns out so I hope you keep us posted as I've never seen this done before and they are somewhat common in my area on older properties.i think they will fill in just fine with no fertilizer


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## ram82

also,pretty close to home on one of the pics.not familiar with the root system on them but I've never seen them raise concrete


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## ScottW

Agree that the two cypress in front look much too close to the house. Granted, I have no experience with that particular plant, but I do have a couple of arborvitae next to my front porch that have grown much larger than when I first planted them 10 years ago.

Now that I think about it, pretty much every plant I've ever planted has growth bigger than I expected when doing the initial layout. LOL


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## ZeonCypress

From what I've read, the root system on Italian Cypress are not very invasive. Root system only spreads about 18-24" from the trunk. The trees in the front are about 20" from the front of the house. I put some lights in front of each tree and they case a cool shadow on the house at night. The cypress in the back are also about 2.5' from the fence.


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## LawnGoals

Hey @ZeonCypress I'm really curious to see how this setup has worked out for you over the last couple years. Especially with that winter storm we had in 2021. I live in a similar neighborhood in New Braunfels and I've been considering the same thing you did for privacy in your back yard. How does it look now? Any after pictures? Thanks! How did you choose Italian Cypress? I was considering those or alternatively Taylor Juniper.


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## Phids

Yeah it would be interesting to see how this turned out. I love the look of mature Italian cypress trees, so I'm wondering what this looks like two+ years in.


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## Bombers

I've seen them in DFW suburbia and it can be overpowering when matured (10-15+ old). Not sure if it will be a problem for you depending on how long you plan on living there. They can always be topped off at a height you want. 10 ft min. would essentially block off everybody since I don't see any 2 story houses.


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