Further to my thread on lawns, we also wish to put up some hedges on the front and side of the house to make the front yard a bit more private. I posted a couple of pictures of a privacy hedge that I liked in Vietnam on a hedge-related thread in the animals/plants forum but no responses there. It has a light green needle-like foliage, isn't too dense and can be around 1.5 high for my purposes.

Anyway, I found the hedge or bush (maybe a tree) at a garden shop on SSCC and when I asked what it was called, I only got the Thai name of 'sohn' (with a rising tone). The plants pictured varied between 1.5 m and almost 2.5 m. If anyone here recognises it from the attached pictures and can come up with its proper name, I can find out how good, bad, wild or easy it is to maintain to a 1.5 m to 2 m height.

Thanks,

NL

NL

My GF tells me it is a type of pine tree.

What you show in the pictures is indeed Sohn trees, no use for hedging unless you want a 40 foot high hedge of course!!

Have a look at the garden centres here, they do have dwarf conifers type same as UK, in green and gold and green.

So I guess a Sohn tree is the local name for Casuarina? In that case I definitely won't be needing a 35 m windbreak!

I attach a couple of photos of the original privacy hedging that I saw in Vietnam. Maybe what I saw is only similar?

"Thon-Sohn" are trees, not shrubs and thus totally useless for your purpose. I have about 35 Rai of these trees growing on our farm in Kabin Buri, BTW, "Thon" means "Tree" (Thon Sahk = Teak Tree, etc.)

Much more suitable for your purpose, would be "Cha-Daaht", which IS a shrub, which is very easy to grow and consists of a dense 'togetherness' of small, shiny, dark-green leaves.

You have seen Cha-Daaht shrubs, but you may not have realized it: whenever you see a "garden-sculpture' say of a Deer, Elephant etc., (how I hate these, by the way !) this consists of a light steel-wire frame over-grown with a shrub: that is the Cha-Daaht I am referring to.

Cha-Daaht can grow up to a couple of meters in height, on its own merits and is very easy to trim, manipulate etc.

These can be purchased from most nurseries, but if you need a lot of them, it's worth traveling to the actual growers, located just East of Bangkok. This is where most Garden Centers buy their stock and thus you will be able to save a lot of money, by going direct.

If you would like directions, just drop me a PM, okay ?

Cheers,

Hubiscus may work.

It is definitely Casurina or Allocasurina. I remember seeing it when i first came to Thailand and was surprised to see it used as topiary - ducks and elephants and so on. it was and still used in centre of the road medium strips in many Thai towns.

You could still use it but it would require fairly regular hedging . And nothing will grow around or under casurina and its native form it will sucker quite regularly .

Just as a personal opinion I do not like seeing cool climate conifers being grown in temperate , sub tropical or tropical climates. They are always struggling and never really appear healthy . There are so many better and more suitable plants .

Tamarisk might be nice, especially if you want a natural looking hedge rather than one that is trimmed square every few weeks. It looks quite similar to that pine and grows fast and can be cut back easily without having to be carefully trimmed. Also has a nice touch of colour in season.

WOW ! seeing the title I thought for a moment that the content of this forum, (where can I find the cheapest ?....etc.) had taken a Quantum Leap and it was a reference to Chris Hedges..but of course I doubt if Pattaya could be further from his thoughts.