Question
Our new house is close to a road and we're looking for good options for year-round privacy that stretches about 50 feet. Zone 5/6. NE Pennsylvania, altitude 2000'.  Rocky, clay-like soil.  Sun and shade.  Deer resistant. Informal. Low maintenance. Mature height to about 6 or 7 feet.  Maybe 4-5 feet width.  Fairly fast growing would be great!  We're thinking maybe rhododendron, yews, holly .....? We like arborvitae, but they are too narrow to provide much privacy unless we plant a lot of them

Answer
Hello Diann

When a new garden is being started I always recommend that the owners have a really good look around the area to see what other people are growing and how healthy the plants appear to be - that's always a great way of finding out what plants will and will not grow in your area.

If you're not able to take advantage of the experience of others, you have to be a pioneer!!

First off, you need to know whether your soil is acid or alkaline.  Why?  Well certain plants absolutely need acid soil to grow at all - rhododendron and pieris are 2 such plants.  If you do have acid soil I would indeed recommend that you incorporate these into your privacy hedge.  They have the advantage that deer don't seem to be tempted by them!  You should be able to get a soil testing kit at any garden center, just follow the instruction on the packaging.

You can grow most other hedging plants in an acid soil, but most of them would attract deer so you would have to erect a deer fence around your property, which would have to be at least 6 feet high.  You could then grow a variety of plants to give a good informal hedge.

These could include:

Berberis darwinii: 6 ft x 6 ft.  Spikey leaf (like miniture holly leafs).  It has orange flowers in the spring.  (This is one the deer may not like, because of those leafs!)

Cotoneaster:  10 ft x 10 ft.  Dark green leafs.  Small, white flowers in spring and red berries in the fall.

Olearia haastii (the New Zealand Daisy Bush):  Up to 15 feet high.  White flowers in late spring/early summer.

Viburnum tinus:  Up to 6ft high (I have known it grow higher though if its very happy!).  This shrub has white flowers in late winter/early spring.

All these shrubs have the advantage of being evergreen - great for a privacy hedge.

There is an arborvitae you could grow - Thuja occidentalis (aka Techny Arborvitae).  This can grow 30 feet + high and 15 feet + wide.  It is very fast growing at 1-2 feet per year.  Unfortunately deer will eat the soft new growth and in the first few years this could cause severe damage.

With all of these plants you must be aware of the spacing when you plant them.  If they are too close they will crowd each other out and thus shorten their lives.  So note the ultimate width of each plant, half it, knock off a couple of feet (as you are planting a hedge and need it to thicken up quickly) and plant that amount away from its neighbor.

As you have a clay and rocky soil, when you dig out the planting trench (a trench is much easier than single holes when you are putting in a lot of plants), incorporate plenty of organic matter in the bottom to encourage the plants to get their roots down into the ground.  If the the rocks are big, dig out as many as you can so that the roots are not being continually challenged!

I hope this has given you some ideas you can work with.

Gill