10 Tall Narrow Plants
Narrow Plants for Privacy and Screening
If you are wondering what to plant along the fence line, check out these 10 tall and narrow plant picks for creating privacy and screening unwanted views.
Finding the perfect plants for narrow spaces can be a bit of a challenge, especially when you want to screen unsightly views, soften harsh walls, or create a bit of privacy in your garden. Whether you're dealing with a slim garden border, a narrow bed, or a small and compact yard, tall and narrow plants are your best allies. These green guardians not only take up minimal space but also deliver maximum impact. Wondering what to plant on your fence line? Searching for the ideal narrow plants for privacy? Look no further! Read on to discover 10 hardworking tall and narrow plants that will transform your tight spaces into lush, beautiful havens.
When choosing your plants for screening, it's essential to consider whether you need evergreen or deciduous varieties. Evergreen plants retain their foliage throughout the year, making them ideal for year-round screening and privacy. They are perfect for blocking unsightly views and neighbor's windows, ensuring your space remains private in every season. Deciduous plants shed their leaves in winter but offer unique features like flowers, colorful berries, and vibrant fall colors that evergreens lack. They are excellent for creating drama and a sense of enclosure in areas frequented from spring through fall, such as patios, fire pits, and side yards.
Before diving into this list of tall and narrow plants, it's crucial to remember a few gardening essentials. First, ensure that the plants you choose are suitable for your USDA gardening zone and will thrive in your local climate. Match the growing requirements of each plant—sunlight, soil type, and water needs—with the conditions in your yard. Water plants deeply and regularly after planting, and don’t forget to keep an eye on the weather and provide extra water during periods of drought to keep your plants healthy and vibrant (brush up on your watering skills here). If you plan to purchase a large number of plants to create a hedge, privacy screen or mass planting, consider using soaker hoses or drip irrigation to automate your watering tasks and protect your investment.
When creating a privacy screen, proper spacing is essential to ensure healthy plant growth while also creating a dense, effective barrier. Each plant listed in this guide comes with specific spacing recommendations for on-center spacing (the distance from the center of one plant to the center of the next plant). You'll notice a range for each plant—use the smaller end of the range if you want a tighter, denser wall of growth that fills in quickly. Opt for the higher end of the spacing range if you don’t mind waiting for plants to fill in and would like to save on costs. Proper spacing ensures your plants have enough room to thrive and create the privacy screen you desire.
Squeeze Box® Inkberry Holly
Ilex glabra ‘SMNIGLA’
Zones: 5-9
Size: 6 feet tall and 2-3 feet wide
Spacing: 2-3 feet on center
Light: Full sun to partial shade
Type: Evergreen
Squeeze Box® Inkberry Holly. Photo courtesy of Proven Winners, provenwinners.com.
Gardeners and designers have been missing one key style in the native plant arsenal - an upright, pyramidal evergreen shrub. Finally, it’s here! The Squeeze Box® inkberry holly is new to garden centers in 2024, and ticks all the right boxes for being able to create a tall, narrow, evergreen privacy screen, all year long. It grows 2-3 feet wide and up to 6 feet tall in full sun to partial shade - a great choice for those looking for tall narrow plants for shade. Squeeze Box® prefers consistently moist soil and does not like drought - be prepared to water regularly.
This male holly is a cultivar of Ilex glabra, a North American native shrub. It has tiny white flowers in spring that are a favorite of bees. Being a male cultivar, it won’t produce berries but it can be used to pollinate the Gem Box® and Strongbox® inkberry holly varieties so they can develop dark blue berries. And as an added bonus, Inkberry hollies are seldom severely damaged by deer, making Squeeze Box® the perfect deer-resistant evergreen alternative to arborvitae.
Purple Pillar® Rose of Sharon
Hibiscus syriacus ‘Gandini Santiago’
Zones: 5-9
Size: 10-16 feet tall and 4-5 feet wide
Spacing: 2-2.5 feet on center
Light: Full sun
Type: Deciduous
Purple Pillar® Rose of Sharon. Photo courtesy of Proven Winners, provenwinners.com.
Purple Pillar® is a unique, narrow, columnar rose of Sharon shrub growing 4-5 feet wide and up to 16 feet tall. It’s a great choice for those who want a dose of color along with screening, since it’s covered with two-toned purple hibiscus flowers from summer through fall. It also grows well in containers and makes a great screening plant for balconies and decks.
Purple Pillar® is easy to grow, requires little to no pruning, and does best in full sun (6+ hours of direct sunlight per day). It does not like to be bombarded with snow falling off the roof, so be sure to site it away from roof lines in areas that receive heavy snowfall. Purple Pillar® is a deciduous shrub that sheds all of its leaves in fall so if you require year-round screening, choose an evergreen shrub instead. Rose of Sharon is drought and heat-tolerant once established, but keep in mind that all plants need supplemental watering when getting established and when growing in containers.
Tall Guy® Arborvitae
Thuja occidentalis ‘RUTTHU5’
Zones: 4-8
Size: 8-12 feet tall and 2-3 wide
Spacing: 2-3 feet on center
Light: Full sun
Type: Evergreen
Tall Guy® Arborvitae. Photo courtesy of Bailey Nurseries.
The Tall Guy® arborvitae is a moderate to fast grower with an upright, columnar shape and bright evergreen foliage remaining on the plant year-round. It’s denser and slightly shorter than the popular Emerald Green arborvitae variety, with improved disease resistance to Cercospora/Passalora needle blight.
This arborvitae variety is a tall and narrow plant, growing 8-12 feet tall and staying only 2-3 feet wide. A row of Tall Guy® plants spaced 2 feet apart on center will grow into a dense, thick hedge, creating privacy and screening the yard year-round. Tall Guy® likes full sun and consistently moist, well-draining soil - be prepared to water regularly, especially during times of heat and drought.
Deer love to feast on arborvitae, so if your property is under pressure from deer browsing, consider planting Squeeze Box® Inkberry hollies instead.
Straight & Narrow® Japanese Holly
Ilex crenata 'PIIIC-I'
Zones: 6-8
Size: 6-8 feet tall and 2-3 feet wide
Spacing: 2 feet on center
Light: Full sun to partial shade
Type: Evergreen
Straight & Narrow® Japanese Holly. Photo courtesy of Bailey Nurseries.
The Straight & Narrow® Japanese holly is an extremely narrow evergreen shrub with small, shiny, dark green leaves. The branches of Straight and Narrow® remain more compact and upright when compared to the Sky Pencil holly, whose branches tend to splay over time. Straight & Narrow® grows 6-8 feet tall and 2-3 feet wide.
This low maintenance holly prefers full sun to partial shade and likes protection from the hot afternoon sun. It grows best in moist, rich, well-draining soil and will need supplemental waterings during times of drought and heat waves.
Straight and Narrow® makes a great plant for screening air conditioning units and generators, or for planting along a chain-link fence. Planting a row of Straight & Narrow® hollies at the back of the garden border will create a lush green backdrop that makes flowering perennials pop, adding visual depth and interest to the garden.
Parkland Pillar® Birch
Betula platyphylla ‘Jefpark’
Zones: 3-7
Size: 40 feet tall and 6-7 feet wide
Spacing: 6-10 feet on center
Light: Full sun to partial shade
Type: Deciduous
Parkland Pillar® Birch. Photo courtesy of Bailey Nurseries.
The Parkland Pillar® birch is an extremely cold-hardy, tall and narrow tree with a dense upright habit. It quickly grows up to 40 feet tall, adding 25+ inches per year under ideal conditions, yet remains only 6-7 feet wide. It has dark green leaves that turn golden yellow in fall, and lovely exfoliating white bark to provide winter interest.
This elegant tree makes a dense 3-season privacy screen, and is a great choice for smaller space gardens and yards. It is extremely tolerant of pollution and urban conditions, making it a suitable tree for smaller city lots. Don’t plant Parkland Pillar® underneath power and utility lines, though, because the tree will eventually grow too tall.
Siting birch trees correctly is crucial to maintaining their health. They prefer cool, shaded, moist soil yet need full to partial sunlight on their leaves to grow well, and they like protection from the hot and drying afternoon sun. Northern and eastern exposures are ideal spots to site birches. Protect your investment and keep your trees healthy with regular visits from a certified arborist. And remember, frequent watering is essential for newly planted trees!
Standing Ovation™ Serviceberry
Amelanchier alnifolia ‘Obelisk’
Zones: 2-8
Size: 15 feet tall and 4 feet wide
Spacing: 4 feet on center
Light: Full sun
Type: Deciduous
Standing Ovation™ Serviceberry. Photo courtesy of Bailey Nurseries.
The Standing Ovation™ Serviceberry is a standout choice for gardeners seeking a tall, narrow plant that offers deer resistance and high wildlife value. This cold-hardy deciduous shrub likes full sun and reaches a mature size of 4 feet wide and 15 feet high while maintaining an elegant, upright oval shape. White spring flowers attract pollinators and are followed by an abundance of edible berries that songbirds eagerly consume. As the seasons change, dark green leaves transform into a brilliant palette of reds and oranges, adding vibrant autumn hues to the garden.
This versatile plant is ideal for creating a tall, narrow hedge, providing a 3-season privacy screen, or softening fence lines. Its slim profile makes it perfect for planting in a narrow side yard, where space is at a premium but impact is desired. It can also be tucked into the corners of garden borders, where it will add visual interest and increase the amount of pollinators and birds visiting the garden. Deer don’t like serviceberry and tend to leave them alone, but young and tender plants should be protected with tubes, wraps or wire cages until they grow larger.
Slender Silhouette Sweetgum
Liquidambar styraciflua ‘Slender Silhouette’
Zones: 5-9
Size: 50-60 feet tall and 5-6 feet wide
Spacing: 4-6 feet on center
Light: Full sun to partial shade
Type: Deciduous
Slender Silhouette Sweetgum
Slender Silhouette is a narrow, fast-growing variety of the sweetgum tree. Unlike the straight species, Slender Silhouette produces very few fruits and is not a messy tree, making it a great choice for planting along driveways and sidewalks. It maintains a tall, narrow, columnar shape as it grows, reaching 50-60 feet tall yet staying only 5-6 feet wide. The star-shaped deciduous leaves have unpredictable fall coloring, and will turn various shades of yellow, orange or red with some autumn seasons being more colorful than others.
Slender Silhouette is great for delineating property lines and screening views. It makes a great vertical accent in smaller space gardens and anywhere a fast-growing screen is needed, including poor soils. This adaptable tree is also deer resistant and is a host plant for several species of butterflies and moths.
Technito® Arborvitae
Thuja occidentalis ‘Bailjohn’
Zones: 3-7
Size: 8-10 feet tall and 4-5 feet wide
Spacing: 4 feet on center
Light: Full sun
Type: Evergreen
Technito® Arborvitae. Photo courtesy of Bailey Nurseries.
Technito® is a dwarf version of the popular Techny arborvitae variety. Technito® grows 8-10 feet tall and 4-5 feet wide and naturally maintains a tight pyramidal shape, no pruning required! The dense, lush branches are covered with dark evergreen scales, making this one of the best looking arborvitae on the market.
Technito® makes an excellent year round privacy screen or hedge. This arborvitae looks lovely in a mass planting and makes a beautiful, dense, dark green backdrop for spring-flowering shrubs like Fothergilla. It’s easy to grow in full sun and tolerant of wet locations. Arborvitae need supplemental watering during heat waves and times of drought - be sure to plan accordingly, and consider using drip irrigation or soaker hoses to automate watering.
Laced Up® Elderberry
Sambucus nigra ‘SNR1292’
Zones: 4-7
Size: 6-10 feet tall and 3-4 feet wide
Spacing: 3 feet on center
Light: Full sun
Type: Deciduous
Laced Up® Elderberry. Photo courtesy of Proven Winners, provenwinners.com.
If tidy, symmetrical evergreens are not really your thing and you are looking for something different, consider the Laced Up® Elderberry. It’s a unique, small-footprint elderberry shrub with a columnar shape, feathery black foliage, and pink summer flowers. This tall, narrow plant grows 6-10 feet high and 3-4 feet wide, with straight branches that dramatically reach skywards. It will produce dark berries when planted near the Black Lace®, Instant Karma® or Black Beauty® elderberries.
For the best flower and berry production, plant Laced Up® in full sun. It can grow in partial shade, but flowering and subsequent berries will be diminished and the plant may take on a leggier, open habit. This elegant shrub works well for screening small patios, planting along fence lines, and creating privacy in small yards. A row of Laced Up® elderberries creates a unique tall, narrow privacy screen in the Goth garden. Please note that Elderberries are toxic to pets and livestock.
Gateway Joe Pye Weed
Eupatorium maculatum ‘Gateway’
Zones: 4-8
Size: 6 feet tall and 1.5-2 feet wide
Spacing: 2 feet
Light: Full sun to partial shade
Type: Deciduous perennial
Gateway Joe Pye Weed
It may surprise you to see a deciduous perennial on this list, but sometimes you need to think outside the box. Some gardeners struggle with narrow strips of dirt adjacent to driveways, walkways, masonry walls, sheds, or property lines. These little strips tend to look very ugly, constantly sprouting weeds or collecting trash and providing a continuous source of frustration for homeowners. Planting something in these narrow strips would solve the problem, but the rootballs of most shrubs and trees are too wide and simply will not fit. Enter Gateway Joe Pye Weed!
Gateway is a popular cultivar of Joe Pye weed, a fast-growing perennial plant that springs up in a hurry when it’s well-watered. It grows up to 6 feet tall and is covered with beautiful dusky mauve flowers from midsummer through early fall. These showy flowers are held atop wine red stems and attract hoards of butterflies and pollinators. Gateway Joe Pye weed can be purchased in small sizes, from plugs to 2-gallon containers (you may need to shop online to find the smallest sizes), and it can even be grown from seed. It works best when sited in full sun (6+ hours of direct sunlight per day) and moist, well-watered soil. The stems of Joe Pye weed will weaken in partial to full shade, and the plant will flop over.
Joe Pye weed requires regular watering, especially during times of drought and when planted next to hot sidewalks and driveways that can radiate heat. It may require a little extra effort to keep it watered, but if you are looking for a tall, narrow plant to fill in a narrow strip of dirt, Gateway Joe Pye weed can be a terrific problem-solver!