I (unfortunately) need to create a visual screen barrier between us and the neighbors. He is slowly but surely turning his bottomland into a junkyard, broken lawnmowers, jet skies, boat trailers, you get the idea... They are all nicely lined up right on the fence, and completely out of his sight (yay for him). For me, they are highly visible when we are down at our farm pond, not too bad from the house itself. I don't have any intention of complaining to the neighbor, it is his property to do what he wants with and is not hurting me. I do want to screen it, preferably with natives.

This particular area is wet, standing water almost all year long. Sunny and flat. I'll be planting along our northern fence line, and the neighbor adjoining property is even wetter than ours - more of a bog. We've planted a few Doug fir seedlings but it's too wet for them and they are yellow and struggling. My thought is to try to propogate some native plants I already have, with the idea to put them in the ground this fall. I have tall Oregon grape, red osier dogwood, and ribes available. I know ribes is easy to start, dogwood not so simple, no clue about the mahonia (forget its new name). I will pick up some sitka willow and Pacific ninebark at the County sale in early February, knowing those will be tiny bareroot seedlings. We also have beavers, so I'll likely put those gawd-awful blue tubes around them until they get established.

I can dig up and transplant cedar and hardhack, both seem OK in wet. I have one sweet gale that supposedly will sucker, but thus far has not spread noticeably. I'll perhaps try to get some starts going from that.

Just tossing this out for input and ideas. I'll post pics at some point for before and after. The other thing I'll do is encourage the blackberries to grow over his dead equipment, although I have little control over whether he will clear them off or not (doubtful). I just hope he doesn't poison anything, all of this wet ground drains into our salmon creek. He's a nice guy, just can't say no to free junk...

If you're not crazy about the blue things, how about using cut down pieces of sheep fencing or chicken wire instead? It's nearly invisible from a distance, especially after it rusts.

I just found this great list from King County- nice plants you could make a very nice screen with natives: They include the dogwood but not Ribes or Oregon Grape on it. One nice thing-the native Pacific Crabapple is on the list so if you want a little tree it would do well there. If you wanted a conifer like the Douglas Fir, how about Shore Pine which supposedly is OK with wet.

https://green2.kingcounty.gov/...

My other option is the conservation people are doing a re-veg down at our creek and I may be able to talk them into putting some of the plants along our fence line. The grant they are running under is specific to our salmon-bearing creek, but surely the health of a creek would benefit from further-out plantings as well. Their initial planting plan shows a bunch of western cedar which I was discouraging them from (they wanted to plant them in the midst of a mature cottonwood stand along a seasonal feeder drainage swale which made little sense to me) but that might be a good fit for my wet border. Interestingly, the conservation folk consider cottonwood a 'short-lived' tree, but when I research it, 200-400 years is not unusual. Guess it's all relative. We've been here 35+ years and the cottonwoods were mature when we moved in, so no clue how old they may be.

Right now is the worse time visually - everything is dormant and the junkyard just blares at me when I take a walk down below. Plus I'm itching to get my hands in the dirt, and that area is a prime project.

I planted a teeny tiny ninebark in my yard last spring, in a dryish area, and did not water it much, It is now over 3 feet tall. So in a better location the ninebark may be a real fast option.
I have not done any gardening in bog conditions, except one little spot by my house which dries up in summer. Hard to establish things there. But as a child in the Midwest, we lived near enormous native blueberry bogs. Those bushes were at least 12 feet tall and made delicious berries. You could stand in one place and fill a bucket.
Do you have bog rosemary in your wet spots? Too short for a screen but very nice plant, I could picture a large swath of them.

Hi Deb,
Sounds like a similar situation I was in years ago.
How much "depth" space do you have for planting? Also, what would you consider the ideal height for screening; e.g., is your property sloped so this is more visible upslope, or, just seen from on the way to the pond? (Attempting a visual here!)
Is there any flow at all in the bog area? That helps immensely.

Excellent idea to approach the conservation folks with their ability to assist. They may have parameters about where they are allowed to plant, but I would pursue that as a viable option.

Because I had the space, I resorted to planting in layers: Salix, Amelanchier, Viburnum (opulus?), Cornus alba. Nothing evergreen in my search, except for Taxodium (Bald cypress), but I didn't want to create a low-light situation on top of the bog problem. There are plenty of lower height plant choices for the 3 - 6' range, but that wouldn't help with screening the view.
I fly fish, so I'm out on the rivers a lot. I'm trying to recall what is common to the banks or edges of the river, other than what you've noted in your post or listed here.
Cottonwoods - yes, they do well, but they have other issues!
Please keep us posted on this topic, as there are many that have to deal with this.

Sorry for the delay, we're just back from an extended road trip. The conservation workers are busy popping something like 2,000+ starts all along our creek, and even along a seasonal drainage creek that feeds the main creek. My husband noted (to them) that they planted quite a few right in the middle of his access roads and he would end up mowing those plants, and they encouraged him to just pull them out and relocate them elsewhere. Most of the plants are live stakes, so easy enough to do. I plan to check out their handiwork when they are all done and reposition some of the road plants to help out with my screening project. I didn't want to interrupt their project and become a pest, so have just let them go about their business. I did ask for a list of what they have planted (just the names, I don't really care about the numbers) so I can figure out what things are as they (hopefully) grow. I am so far quite amazed at the sheer number of plants - they must allow for a significant attrition rate. They did say a second crew will be out a couple times this summer to weedwack around the new plants to give them a fighting chance for sunshine. And they've all been flagged.

In response to Kate, the area I need to screen is down a fairly large hill from our house and yard, not nearly as noticeable in the summer as the winter. But, as junkyards tend to do, this one is growing. I just noticed a new orangy thing (riding mower?) that stands out quite clearly. It can be as wide as I want it to be - I'd like to plant the fence line itself pretty heavily, then fan out with perhaps 3 or 4 staggered rows.

Here's a couple photos. This is a flat area to the right of our main access road out back. It is used primarily as a staging area for dragging logs to be cut into firewood, and also houses our perpetual burn pile, so not a real attractive area to begin with. The junkyard does not enhance it...