Fast-Growing Privacy Trees: The Best Screens to Plant

Fast growing privacy trees are the ones that block your neighbor’s view fast and then stay dense at the spot where you actually need cover. Two numbers decide whether a tree screens a property line: how many feet it adds per year, and how wide it gets. People obsess over height and forget width. A skinny tree that shoots up 4 feet a year still leaves gaps you can see straight through. You want speed and spread.

You don’t have to plant evergreen to screen a yard. Evergreens hold the wall in winter, but a fast deciduous or flowering tree gives you a thick summer screen for half the cost, and summer is when you’re out on the patio anyway. This page covers both, plus the budget and windbreak angles. It’s a use-case companion to our broader fast-growing trees guide. If a screen is part of a larger yard plan, mklibrary’s look at whether a new tree fits your garden is a useful gut-check before you buy. If you’ve already decided you want a year-round green wall, our fast-growing evergreen trees for privacy guide ranks 10 evergreen species by growth rate and is the deeper read for evergreen-specific picks.

How fast can you screen a yard

Faster than people think, slower than the ads promise. Here’s the honest timeline, assuming you plant 5 to 6 foot nursery stock and water it the first two summers.

A fast evergreen like Green Giant arborvitae, adding 3 to 4 feet a year, gets you a solid 10 to 12 foot wall in 2 to 3 years. That screens a single-story view by the second summer. A two-story deck looking down at your yard takes 4 to 6 years to block.

A fast deciduous screen moves even quicker in summer leaf. Hybrid poplar puts on 5 to 8 feet a year and throws a full leaf wall by the second season. The catch is winter: it drops its leaves and you can see through it from November to April.

The lever that beats all of this is the size you plant. A 6-foot tree starts 6 feet ahead of a 2-foot whip. Buying taller stock buys back a summer or two of waiting, and it’s the one thing that reliably shortens the timeline. Watering is the other. A tree that dries out in July stalls for the rest of the year.

The best fast-growing privacy trees

These span evergreen workhorses and fast deciduous screens. Every growth rate is sourced. For the evergreens, I’ve kept the profiles tight on purpose and pointed you to the evergreen privacy guide for the spacing math and full species lineup. The deciduous and flowering screens get more room here, because the other guides don’t cover them.

1. Green Giant Arborvitae (Thuja standishii x plicata ‘Green Giant’)

The default fast evergreen screen, and for good reason. NC State Extension rates it rapid at 3 to 4 feet a year, maturing at 40 to 60 feet tall and 12 to 18 feet wide in zones 5 to 8. It resists the canker diseases that kill Leyland cypress, shrugs off deer, and stays dense to the ground.

• Growth rate: rapid (3-4 ft/yr)
• Mature size: 40-60 ft tall, 12-18 ft wide
• Zones: 5-8
• Caveat: It gets huge. On a lot under half an acre it swallows the space in a decade. Our full Green Giant arborvitae guide covers the spacing math.

2. Nellie Stevens Holly (Ilex x ‘Nellie R. Stevens’)

The best broadleaf evergreen screen, and the warm-climate answer to arborvitae. NC State Extension rates it rapid, 15 to 30 feet tall and 8 to 25 feet wide in zones 6 to 9. Glossy dark leaves, red winter berries, and it fruits without a separate pollinator.

• Growth rate: rapid
• Mature size: 15-30 ft tall, 8-25 ft wide
• Zones: 6-9
• Caveat: The spiny leaves are no fun to prune bare-handed. It took over from Leyland cypress as the standard screening pick across most Southeast extension programs.

3. Murray Cypress (the Leyland you should buy instead)

If you want that fast feathery cypress look, plant Murray cypress, not Leyland. It’s a Leyland cultivar selected for better disease resistance, and it handles Southern heat and humidity that stress arborvitae. I’m keeping this brief because the evergreen privacy guide profiles it in full with rate, size, and spacing.

Do not plant straight Leyland cypress. I know the nursery has a wall of them and they’re least expensive on the lot. Clemson Extension has stopped recommending them: Seiridium canker, Botryosphaeria dieback, and needle blight kill them across the Southeast, and a 60 to 70 foot tree that dies in year eight is the most expensive screen you can buy. Plant Green Giant or Murray instead.

4. Hybrid Poplar (the fast deciduous screen)

The fastest screen there is. The Arbor Day Foundation clocks hybrid poplar at 5 to 8 feet a year and lists it as a deciduous screen. Plant a row and you’ll have a leaf wall by the second summer. Nothing evergreen comes close to that speed.

• Growth rate: 5-8 ft/yr
• Use: fast deciduous summer screen
• Caveat: This is a short-term tree. Brittle wood, thirsty roots that hunt for sewer lines, and a 15 to 35 year lifespan. Plant it for fast summer cover while a slower evergreen fills in behind it, then remove it. Don’t plant it as your permanent screen and don’t put it near pipes or a foundation.

5. Crape Myrtle (the flowering hedge)

The best fast screen that also flowers all summer. NC State Extension rates crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) rapid, 6 to 30 feet tall and wide depending on cultivar, in zones 6 to 9. A row of tall types like ‘Natchez’ (white) or ‘Muskogee’ (lavender) makes a screen that blooms June through September, then shows off peeling bark in winter.

• Growth rate: rapid
• Mature size: 6-30 ft (cultivar dependent)
• Zones: 6-9
• Caveat: Deciduous, so it’s a summer screen. Pick a tall cultivar for screening; the dwarf types stay too short. Don’t top them into knuckled stumps (“crape murder”). Prune them right and they bloom harder.

6. Columnar European Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus ‘Fastigiata’)

The formal screen for a narrow run along a driveway or property line. NC State Extension describes the ‘Fastigiata’ cultivar as dense, upright, and used as a screen for its wind resistance, and notes the species takes heavy pruning well as a hedge. It’s a moderate grower, not a sprinter, but the tight columnar shape gives you a screen in a width arborvitae can’t fit.

• Growth rate: moderate
• Mature size: narrow, upright (species 40-60 ft, cultivar much tighter)
• Zones: 4-8
• Caveat: Slower than the others here, so plant larger stock if you want cover fast. It holds dead coppery leaves into winter, which actually adds some screening when it’s leafless.

7. Columnar Red Maple (Acer rubrum ‘Armstrong’)

A fast, skinny deciduous screen for tight lots. NC State Extension rates red maple rapid and lists the columnar Armstrong cultivar for its narrow, upright habit in zones 4 to 9, so you can line a fence with it where a spreading tree would never fit. Our columnar maple trees guide ranks Armstrong against Crimson Sentry, Bowhall, and the other narrow cultivars with their widths and zones.

• Growth rate: rapid (red maple rating, NC State)
• Use: narrow deciduous screen, fall color
• Zones: 4-9
• Caveat: Deciduous, so it screens in summer only. The payoff is red fall color and a footprint that fits a 6-foot strip.

Cheap ways to plant a fast privacy screen

A 60-foot screen of nursery-grown 6-foot trees runs real money, often $50 to $100 a tree before you’ve dug a single hole. Here’s how to cut that without cutting corners.

Buy bare-root or small. A bare-root or 1-gallon arborvitae costs a fraction of a balled-and-burlapped 6-footer, often $15 to $30 versus $80. You wait an extra year or two for full height, but you save hundreds across a long run. Plant bare-root in late winter while it’s dormant.

Buy arborvitae in bulk. Nurseries and online growers drop the per-tree price hard when you order a flat of 10 or 25. A bulk order of small Green Giant or Emerald Green can land under $20 a tree. Speaking of which, Emerald Green arborvitae is the cheap narrow cousin: it stays under 4 feet wide and is least expensive of the lot, though it grows slower (6 to 12 inches a year) and deer treat it like dessert.

Mix in shrubs for the lower wall. You don’t need a tree everywhere. A fast tall shrub fills the bottom 6 to 10 feet for less than a tree, and it gets you a denser screen at eye level. Our privacy shrubs and hedges guide ranks the fastest screening shrubs by cost, and the tall narrow shrubs guide covers the skinny ones that fit a 3-foot strip.

Space for the budget. The wider you can stand to space plants, the fewer you buy. If you can wait an extra year for the gaps to close, plant at the wide end of the spacing range below and let the trees grow into each other. Patience is the least expensive tool in the shed.

Fast-growing windbreaks

A windbreak is a screen built to block wind, not just sightlines, and it’s a different job. A well-designed windbreak cuts heating and cooling bills for rural homes by 10 to 20 percent, per University of Minnesota Extension. The design rules matter more than the species.

Plant multiple rows, mixed species. UMN Extension recommends several species across multiple rows so that if one row fails, the windbreak still works. A mix of deciduous and conifers does the job better than a single-species wall, the same logic that makes mixed privacy screens more durable than monocultures.

Use the fast growers up front. Fast trees like hybrid poplar and willow fill the wind wall quickly while slower, longer-lived conifers establish behind them. Eastern red cedar is the bulletproof evergreen workhorse for a windbreak: it takes wind, drought, alkaline soil, and salt, and the evergreen privacy guide covers it in detail. Green Giant arborvitae works too; the Arbor Day Foundation lists it for screen, hedge, and windbreak use.

Space the rows wide. Poplar at the fast end wants about 4 feet apart in a single row, or 6 feet apart staggered if you run two rows. Conifers need more, 10 to 15 feet, because they spread. Give the rows 8 to 12 feet between them so each tree fills out.

Spacing and planning your screen

Get spacing wrong and you either wait a decade for the gaps to close or fight overcrowding forever. The rule of thumb is to plant at half to two-thirds of the mature width. Here’s the working table.

Tree	Spacing for a screen	Notes
Green Giant arborvitae	5-6 ft apart	Single row screens most property lines
Emerald Green arborvitae	3-4 ft apart	Narrow, cheap, slower; tighter spacing
Nellie Stevens holly	5-8 ft apart	Broadleaf evergreen, warm zones
Murray cypress	5-8 ft apart	Leyland alternative, zones 6-9
Crape myrtle (tall cultivar)	6-10 ft apart	Summer flowering screen
Columnar hornbeam	4-6 ft apart	Formal narrow screen
Armstrong columnar maple	8-10 ft apart	Narrow deciduous, fall color
Hybrid poplar	8-12 ft apart	Temporary fast screen only

Don’t cram them closer hoping to rush it. Overcrowded trees compete for water and light, thin out at the bottom, and invite disease. Plant at the right spacing and water deep instead.

Watering is the lever that decides how fast the screen actually fills in. A whole row drying out in July stalls every tree at once. A TreeGator watering bag zipped around each trunk drips a slow 20-gallon soak over several hours, so the water reaches root depth instead of running off the dry surface. Fill them twice a week the first two summers and the whole screen grows evenly. Top-heavy nursery trees in a windy spot need staking the first year. A Jevrench tree stake kit keeps the root ball from rocking loose, then pull the stakes after a year so the trunks build strength on their own. If you’re planting in deer country, the young growth on arborvitae and holly is exactly what they browse first. A Bobbex deer repellent sprayed every few weeks through the first couple of seasons gets the screen tall enough to stop being a buffet.

For the step-by-step on getting each tree in the ground right, see our tree planting guide. Plant in fall (September through November) so the roots establish over winter before the top growth wakes up. If you’d rather have a pro lay out the whole screen, mklibrary covers professional landscape design services and what they bring to a project like this.

Frequently asked questions

What is the fastest growing privacy tree? Hybrid poplar is the outright fastest at 5 to 8 feet a year, but it’s a short-lived, brittle tree you plant only as a temporary summer screen. For a screen that lasts, Green Giant arborvitae at 3 to 4 feet a year is the fastest one worth keeping. In warm zones 8 and 9, Murray cypress and Nellie Stevens holly are the fast picks. For evergreen-specific options, our fast-growing evergreen trees guide ranks 10 species by rate.

What grows fastest for privacy without getting too big? Nellie Stevens holly tops out around 15 to 30 feet and grows rapidly, so it screens fast without the 60-foot ceiling of Green Giant. For a narrow lot, a columnar maple or columnar hornbeam stays skinny while still putting on height. If you need the screen to stay short and tight, our tall narrow shrubs guide covers plants that fit a 3-foot strip.

Are there cheap fast-growing privacy trees? Yes. Buy bare-root or small stock and order in bulk. A flat of small Green Giant or Emerald Green arborvitae can run under $20 a tree, versus $80 for a balled 6-footer. Emerald Green is the least expensive narrow evergreen, though it grows slower. Mixing in fast privacy shrubs and hedges for the lower wall stretches the budget further.

How far apart should I plant privacy trees? Plant at half to two-thirds of the tree’s mature width. Green Giant arborvitae goes 5 to 6 feet apart, Nellie Stevens holly 5 to 8 feet, a tall crape myrtle 6 to 10 feet. Closer spacing fills in faster but leads to overcrowding, thin lower growth, and disease within a decade. When in doubt, space wider and water deep.

Should I plant evergreen or deciduous for privacy? Evergreen if you need year-round cover, especially screening a winter view or a two-story deck. Deciduous (crape myrtle, columnar maple, hybrid poplar) if you mostly want summer privacy on the patio and want to spend less. A smart combo is a fast deciduous tree for instant summer cover planted alongside a slower evergreen that fills in behind it over a few years.

How fast do privacy trees grow into a real screen? A fast evergreen at 3 to 4 feet a year, planted at 5 to 6 feet tall, reaches a solid 10 to 12 foot wall in 2 to 3 years. A two-story view takes 4 to 6 years. Buying taller nursery stock and watering deep the first two summers is what actually shortens that timeline. Our how fast do trees grow hub has the full growth-rate picture, and the pine tree growth rate guide covers fast conifer screens specifically.