Splurge Monday’s Workwear Report: Poplin Skirt
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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
I’ve been hearing that Tory Burch is having A Moment again. The brand has a fun collab with a Swedish candy company with some cute bags and shoes, but I’m also loving a lot of this season’s clothes, including this poplin skirt.
The part of me that was heavily influenced by the first few seasons of “Sex and the City” wants to pair it with this tank top and hit the town. The 40-something mom in me would wear this to work with a short-sleeved sweater and some loafers. We contain multitudes!
The skirt is $548 at Tory Burch and comes in sizes 00-14.
A couple of lower-priced options are from Banana Republic Factory (lucky sizes in both black and white, $66) and Market & Spruce (XS-XXL, $59 at Stitch Fix).
Sales of note for 6/12/25:
- Nordstrom – Beauty deals up to 25% off + designer clearance up to 60% off
- Nordstrom Rack – Refurbished Dyson hairdryers down to $199-$240 (instead of $400+)
- Ann Taylor – 30% off pants + skirts + extra 40% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 40-60% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new womenswear styles
- Eloquii – 50-60% select styles + extra 45% off all sale
- J.Crew – Easy summer styles $39.50+ + extra 50% sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – Extra 20% off 3+ styles + up to 60% off everything + extra 50% off clearance
- M.M.LaFleur – 30% summer essentials with code + try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off
- Rothy's – Up to 50% off last-chance styles
- Spanx – Free shipping on everything
- Talbots – Semi-Annual Red Door Sale: Extra 60% off 3+ markdowns, 50% off 2, 40% off 1 + 30% off select travel must-haves
Help me find cute summer dresses, both for work and weekends (my work dress is very casual). Anything that anyone recently bought that they love?
Boden Florrie Jersey Dress. There’s a version with cutouts too if you like that kind of thing. I just got the regular black short sleeve and wear it everywhere.
Old Navy has a lot of cute casual dresses. They’re very popular in my office (like 6 of us have bought several dresses from there recently. I’ve accidentally matched a colleague a few times!)
Not for work, but the Fit & Flare Linen-Blend Midi Dress from Old Navy is cute.
Actually, I do wear it to work! Buy it in longer lengths and plain colors!
I’ve been liking dresses from Marine Layer. Cute, light, and not too expensive.
I recently bought this dress from JMcLaughlin. I returned it because I am quite short, it was near to floor length on me, and I could not see how to hem it or lift it from the waist. I’m sort of mourning having to do so. If you are 5’6″ ish or more, I can’t recommend it enough. It is well made and very flattering. For the record I am oldish and not svelte, and but for the length it looked great and was very comfortable.
https://www.jmclaughlin.com/products/somerset-dress-solid-navy
That’s really cute!
Just bought the this one and I really like it. It’s lined and roomy but not unflattering. Long enough I can wear it to the office (I’m 5’2″) but it looks good for weekends too. Quince 100% European Linen Tank Mini Dress
My summer dresses recently are from Tuckernuck. Tons of compliments on each one. I’m about to pull the trigger on the Navy Gingham Smoked Abilene Midi dress.
Has anyone taken Norethisterone to delay a period and if so what were the side effects. Or is there a way to delay it with birth control (currently don’t take anyone). I am considering delaying it for a vacation
Yes, you can delay a period pretty easily with the regular pill, just keep taking it.
I skip mine with my regular BCP all the time. You just skip the placebo week and go right to the next pack of pills. There are no side effects associated with doing this.
If you skip the placebos for years you might experience breakthrough bleeding or cramping. I’ve been taking the pill continuously for a decade (at my doctor’s direction) and only started experiencing this recently. Skipping placebos one time for a vacation won’t have any side effects though.
I have an IUD and ordered this through wisp once to delay my period for an event. It worked fantastically, no side effects, would definitely do it again.
I’ve done it a few times, with varying results. Twice, I guess I got the timing wrong and it just didn’t work. Other times, it’s worked well, but I have sort of felt like I was grumpier and PMS-ier during the time I was on it, though it’s always hard to tell for sure. But I’d still use it again.
(Every time my period rolls around, I find myself wondering if getting off the pill was a mistake. Ugh.)
Yeah it was great no side effects
Best place for a spray tan in Philly or the mainline?
This skirt reminds me of late 1980’s (early 90’s?) elementary school teacher clothes. Passing on this, although I’ve seen the button front midi skirts on a few sites. Not in the wild yet…
Every few years or so I’ll do a Poshmark search for the Talbots Irish Linen ones from decades ago and wear it for a bit in whatever size I happen to be. It’s definitely a look, but one I enjoy every now and then.
My 4th grade daughter has a green skirt similar to this that we bought as part of her Halloween costume a couple years ago. She loves it and wears it all the time, and I privately refer to it as her “sister wife skirt”
Nailed it! It’s Chloë Sevigny’s wardrobe from Big Love
Can confirm. Source: I graduated from a fundamentalist Christian high school in the mid-80s, which required girls to wear dresses, and we all had this skirt, in multiple colors if we were lucky. I had it in red, and I think it was $13.99.
That’s why I couldn’t get behind the long denim skirts I saw on the fashion girlies last year. Those were the uniform of the Pentecostal churches in my area.
I’m from an area that has a large Pentecostal population. I went to junior high in the late 1970s when everyone had feathered hair and wore tight flare leg pants like dittos.
The Pentecostal girls couldn’t wear feathered hair because they couldn’t cut their hair, so they had all kinds of ways they could style their hair to make it appear like it had wings without cutting it.
They were also devotees of gaucho pants, because I guess for the church they were considered a skirt, but they were the closest thing they could wear to pants.
If I can think of one time in my life when I was relentlessly bullied, it’s that period of my life, and my bullies were two Pentecostal girls. I guess, in hindsight, when you’re oppressed, you seek to oppress others, maybe. I don’t know.
Yeah I think if you are in a location where fundie fashion is a thing, this gives off those vibes. If you’re not in that sort of place it probably could be a workhorse in the wardrobe.
Over $500 for this skirt!?!!! Wild.
My now-retired colleague had a bunch of skirts and dresses like this that she had apparently bought when she got her graduate degree in 1992 and just kept wearing throughout her career.
I think it was the late 80s or early 90s when I bought a skirt and a matching top like this, though the fabric was more drapey. I wore the crap out of those pieces for years! Though I am sure it’s in part because things were made better back then.
This look is all in the styling. The price point doesn’t make sense to me, regardless, but this can definitely be taken in a direction that is far from fundamentalist religious wife with the right shoes, bag, top, and haircut.
Why work that hard at it, though? Why not just wear something that looks nice without so much effort?
I am not trying to sell this skirt to you or to me or anyone whose style is not right for it. I am day ng that the skirt is aimed at people with a different aesthetic from the typical corporate drone/lawyer and those people may already have the right accessories and spend a lot of time (and money) curating their appearance.
I sometimes wear a navy version of this skirt with a Saint James striped shirt tucked in and it looks great. I’ve never found it hard and I’m someone who thinks a 5 minute face of makeup is 4 minutes too long.
Because people like to look nice. You remember you’re on a fashion blog, right?
But this skirt is not nice. Why would you spend hundreds of dollars on something so ugly you had to “style” it to make it look halfway decent? Why not just spend that money on something that looks nice and then style it to look even nicer?
I just don’t think you understand how fashion works. Sorry.
Crowdsourcing for what I do next. Short version – colleague freaked out at me over something dumb, do I leave it or try and talk to him? My workload has been unsustainable for a while. Understaffing plus high priority projects plus normal heavy workload means ruthless prioritization.
A colleague – who I should mention I have worked with for 90% of my career and would consider a friend – basically lit into me because I had not prioritized his team’s ask. It was – by all accounts – a low priority thing but it blew up to where he feels like I’m disrespectful to him (note: he is a higher level, not in my chain, and we have the same boss). In private, I said to him, ‘Dude, I’m drowning. You need to give me a break here.’ Evidently, I could not talk to him like this and that started a whole thing.
This basically was my last straw though. I have been working nonstop to get actual priorities done and the only way to get this done is literally to work every weekend and cancel vacation days. I basically spent the day hiding and crying while I churned through work and kept my office door closed and camera off. I am spiraling.
My boss basically said guy who freaked out at me was out of line but I could have probably responded better. There is already a fix in place for the underlying reason I couldn’t provide the ask long term, but now we’re in a place where anything I have to ask guy who freaked out for normal stuff and he is taking it as somehow me being difficult? I’d been taking the position that I was just going to lay low and be super professional and it would sort itself out, but like… I’m losing sleep over this. It makes the most sense for me to stay at this org but I’m thinking of leaving my job over this… So do I just have a meeting with him and apologize (again?) Do I say ‘screw you’ and just let it be weird?
It sounds like you are conflating two issues: an unreasonable workload and a bad conversation with him. I would try to think of them as separate issues. It is not his fault that you have too many balls to juggle and are in hiding doing cameras off. It sounds like you first need a strategy to deal with workload. Can mutual reporting boss review how you are currently prioritizing? This “blessing” will help others align (and let you know if your views of what is and isn’t a low priority are the same). You need to focus on a bigger fix here than continuing to dodge. Your coworker isn’t wrong for trying to find out when you will get to his project. You need to accept that. Just like you are not wrong for needing a strategy for what will get tackled that has the buy-in of those above you, whether that’s pushed deadlines, more resources, project management support, or simply a portion of dedicated time for day to day duties so fires don’t overwhelm everything getting done.
Thank you. I think part of what’s getting me is that I did have support from our mutual boss in dropping non-critical items and do get my priority list blessed by him. The long term plan basically just changed – it did involve staffing and now that’s on hold because of federal stuff.
I think part of what I got so flustered by is that this was something that could fall… and having somebody rake me over the coals who I thought had my back is totally disconcerting.
FWIW – boss thinks it will blow over and trusts that I’m good managing personalities and can handle it. I feel shaken. Like, but what if I can’t handle it.
We used to have regular coordination meetings where my level + one level up would basically regroup as a large group but those were dropped. I think
How long has your workload been unmanageable and what is being done (by you and your chain of command) to fix that?
Unless you’re safeguarding the nuclear codes, you shouldn’t be canceling vacations and working weekends.
Start picking up the phone and calling him to ask for things. Be nice. He’s going to have hear how nice you are before he stops reading bad intent in your email tone. It’s annoying, but it’s helped me repair this type of situation. This is not uncommon.
I once had a senior colleague lay into me for not responding to her (non-urgent, non-material) email within 24 hours. I was a funeral for a family member who had been killed in the line of duty as a police officer. When she scolded me, I told her the reason for the delay, and she said she didn’t care. We had words. Very similar situation. We both have moved on and mended fences.
Just a caution on this–you leave yourself without documentation. And too much of this can feel like you have time to chat but not time to “do.” So follow up these convos with professional emails summarizing what will be done by each of you and by when (update as needed when pushes in deadline are needed). Trust me, he doesn’t care if you are friendly or prickly so much as having the respect of knowing you are aware of the project and there is a plan.
I took this route too and the other person was totally unsympathetic and her voice was dripping with anger and our conversation quickly devolved (I said dumb things like “just be nice” which was cringeworthy in retrospect).Don’t call while you are still upset. Don’t expect a friendly response or even much understanding from the other person. Keep your message short.
This is an issue for your shared boss to lead on.
Ask for your boss to have a meeting with the two of you. The agenda should be to align on priorities, timelines, and how to work together for deliverables (what materials/info to be provided by when, who are the designed POCs, how to handled escalations.)
Get boss to have this meeting, document the items outlined above, circulate it to everyone in the meeting afterwards so there is alignment. Then follow the agreed upon process.
If the other person deviates from the agreed upon plan, copy boss in to email chain and ask how the proposed deviation should be handled if it’s nothing something that you agree with/can deliver one.
Do this with a smile and everything will be fine.
This feels like overkill but maybe I’m there?
Sounds like you’re there. It’s affecting your sleep, you’re crying, you feel the need to hide, and you describe yourself as “spiraling.” I don’t know what other sign you’re waiting for. Bring your boss in so three of you can get in sync on priorities. This will also help the coworker get a better sense of all of the higher priority things that need to be dealt with given limited resources so there is context around the plan and furuther delay likelihood and (more important) see that the boss is behind you and the plan. Telling someone to give you a break but not actually coming in with a project plan and shared sense of priorities–and then ghosting–is a sure way to keep the conflict high. And you don’t have time for that.
I had a similar issue come up recently. I felt horrible and worried. I talked to my boss and another co-worker who were sympathetic. Another very high-level person stepped in and tried to take me out of the process, which was disheartening. I just kept up my work and treated the other person well, trying to prioritize their work more than I had been. This person was nicer as a result and nothing terrible happened. I am actually moving on to another job though because I’m tired of being underpaid and overworked. I haven’t resigned yet but will as soon as my offer is finalized.
Did you give coworker a timeframe for when you would be able to complete his team’s ask when you received it? “I am working on some other urgent assignments right now and may not be able to get to this for another couple weeks. Does that work for you?” If you did not tell coworker when he could expect his ask to be addressed, then I think he has a right to be upset. An apology can go a long way towards mending a relationship – “Hey [coworker], I am sorry I left you hanging a couple weeks ago. I should have told you when I would be able to get to it. I’ll try to be better about that next time.”
I vote for say screw you, but internally, and just let him be weird if he wants to be weird. It sounds like he owes you an apology.
Yes, this. Do your work, with the priorities that make sense. Respond to this co-worker professionally, and let them deal with their own (what sound like obnoxious) responses.
The key phrase here is “the priorities that make sense.” OP needs to make sure boss is in line with the current prioritization, and then that the plan for the project under this prioritization is shared with the colleague. Otherwise, you’re just going to get more of the same. Ignoring colleague is only going to make colleague keep pestering her. And if the priorities aren’t shared, this could potentially backfire as the boss sees it is getting ignored. It doesn’t have to be done or even touched. It just needs to have a shared view of what needs to happen for it to start getting touched again.
Without reading other comments, my first take is that you should apologize to him and smooth it over if you’re friends. And move his project to a higher priority for yourself or delegate and oversee if you can.
Yep, same. Sounds like you screwed up but had reasons. Those don’t really matter. You need to go into fix mode.
Shopping help for the husband. DH has put on a lot of upper body muscle in the last year, and his button down and polo shirts no longer fit in the shoulders, chest, and arms – but they still fit in the waist. He likes closer-fit clothes (not tight, I promise). Where do we buy new shirts? He doesn’t want the traditional fit that are large in the waist. But slim fit cuts are too small. His work world is very casual, so Costco or Walmart level clothing is absolutely fine.
I know that buying bigger sizes and tailoring is an option that we may have to go with, but I’d like to find out if anyone has suggestions for manufacturers that cater to this market.
Look for “athletic” cuts.
+1, this.
Athletic is different from slim–it is roomy in the shoulders and chest and smaller through the waist. Slim is just tight all over.
Brooks Brothers for dress shirts. They have a few different cuts from which to choose.
Have you tried Express? My boyfriend is shaped similarly and that’s his favorite store.
Charles Thyrwhitt makes dress shirts and polos in regular, slim and extra slim cuts. The slim cut works for my husband who is muscular but thin waist (size L for shoulders and chest but 32 inch waist). We also have luck with J Crew t-shirts (also come in long lengths if your husband is tall).
My husband has this upper body and likes the polo shirts from Express men. It’s not really his aesthetic but the basics are solid. he’s also had luck in the past at Sisely and Benneton.
I knew people would have ideas. Thank you!
Get shirts that fit his arms and chest then tailor the waist. It’s a simple alteration
+1 for truly fit men in the US this is the only answer.
Have you tried H&M?
Both regular and slim fit might work there, they have five different fits. Avoid relaxed, oversized or loose.
My kid is interning at a nonprofit. The org. is reimbursing her 70 cents a mile for driving. I handle her taxes (she is 17) and my chart from my tax preparer said the max is 14 cents a mile. Is she going to get a weird income tax document? Or can she get 70 cents because she’s an employee?
the current rate is 70 cents per mile. 14 cents sounds very outdated.
The reg is 70 cents for business use but 14 cents as follows: “The standard mileage rate is 14 cents per mile for use of an automobile in rendering gratuitous services to a charitable organization under § 170” https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-25-05.pdf
IANA(tax)L but that reference to ‘gratuitous’ sounds like if you’re a paid intern, the 70 cents would apply?
Is she driving for work or for charity? Internship implies she is working there rather than volunteering.
I’m not a tax professional but it seems like the org can choose to reimburse her however much they want and she just can’t get anything further back on her tax return if they already paid her more than the IRS mileage minimum.
+1
This is the right answer.
I wouldn’t worry about it. As an employee, I believe she can get 70 cents. I think the 14 cents is only if you are deducting the mileage as a contribution to the charity
Also, how much of a tax issue are you talking about really when you’re in cents not even dollars.
The reimbursement doesn’t get counted as income, so there’s no deduction needed. The deduction comes in when you don’t get reimbursed.
The 14 cents is if you’re deducting your own mileage as a charitable contribution. That’s not her situation.
I came here to say this. One is reimbursement, the other is a tax deduction.
This is tangential to your question, but taxes at 17 are generally very simple and a fantastic learning experience. My parents had me do my own paper taxes throughout my teenage years and I’m so grateful. It was helpful to see what goes into calculating them and have a general knowledge of the pertinent forms. I plan on doing the same for my kids…even though I use TurboTax now, I’m glad to have the foundation and I’m comfortable reviewing the return before filing because I know what I’m looking at.
The tax industry in the US is such a racket. It should all be automated like the rest of the world but companies lobbied hard to keep their money maker.
+1
I think people really underestimate how much harm this kind of thing does
My kid is an intern in his early 20s, just finishing college, and he does his taxes online at something referred to you by irs.gov. It’s free and easy. I think those companies like TurboTax maintain it so they can keep their for-profit models for more complicated taxes, which isn’t great, but at least there’s a free and easy alternative for people with uncomplicated taxes, like teenagers.
They’re trying to get rid of this.
Have you seen the tax code?! IDK how you’d automate that. It’s not like a VAT or sales tax. And other countries have weird rules also. There is a reason Big 4 are all over the world.
I’d suggest you look into the tax industry lobbying but I suspect you probably work for one of the companies that benefit from it.
Even assuming your premise were true, that’s an argument in favor of automating it rather than assigning hundreds of millions of individuals who are not, in fact, tax professionals, the obligation to figure it out for themselves or pay someone to do it on their behalf.
IRS: pay your taxes
Me: how much do I owe?
IRS: we know exactly how much, but you have to figure it out
Me: what if I get it wrong?
IRS: jail
Fix the tax code too. The only reason it’s so complicated is to protect unfair advantages and burden the people least able to pay.
12:28, I don’t think the IRS actually knows how much unless they audit you.
Right, they certainly don’t know all your potential deductions and credits. It’s a good meme but like most memes it’s superficial, meant to drum up laughs and outrage, and a little bit misleading
I did my own taxes by hand on paper as a teen and college kid too–including schedule C, which I had to fill out when I discovered on April 14 that the 1099 I got from the orchestra in which I played meant I was an independent contractor and not an employee. Fun times. In grad school I took a course in tax economics where I had to fill out an extremely complex hypothetical tax return by hand–including schedule C. I got a 100%.
When I got married, my husband insisted that we pay a CPA to do our taxes. The CPA knew less than I did (e.g., missed a state deduction), so now I do our taxes with tax software. My teen did her own taxes with the free federal on-line program this year, but since that’s going away I guess she’s doing them by hand next time around.
I saw an eye opening exchange on social media (of my Very Liberal friend) re DOGE cuts to the IRS and some accountants were saying how wildly broken the tax system and code are, no one knows the answers or will call you back, can’t get a straight answer, etc.
Boss is on vacation. Chief Boss has been handling things in their absence including a big thing that happened with a client. Boss had been handling incident before she went away and I was not involved with the follow-up. I’m a middle manager and getting scapegoated by Chief Boss, like it’s all my fault for not reporting on it more. It’s really Boss’ fault but they and the Chief are buddies, so the blame is falling to me. Any advice how to push back and defend myself professionally? (I want to say, I was unaware of all the details and I thought Boss was handling it. )
I don’t think you can push back. Friends are going to defend eachother and you are in the out-group.
That stinks. Sorry. I don’t think there’s a way to defend yourself without annoying Chief Boss. I’d just put my head down and wait for it to blow over.
Wow, thank you both. I think you have just saved me. I drafted an email and I have now completely sanitized it! I needed that reality check.
If you have a good relationship, this is a good thing to talk about boss with in person upon their return. They will likely recognize and appreciate your discretion but also help to remedy with your grandboss so that you’re not tarnished by this.
This is terrible advice
If you can just keep your head down and let it fizzle that would be ideal. But if Chief Boss is pushing for a response from you, reply in a way that makes clear you were not involved. “I take this seriously and want to help resolve the issue. Since I have not been involved on this matter so far, can you bring me up to speed so I have the necessary context?”
i like this
Two people in my circle were deployed to the Middle East over the weekend. Why are these old men so hellbent on starting WWIII???
There were political as$as$inations this weekend, they’re trying to ruin everything.
Unless your friends are special operators, their deployments were long-planned and have nothing to do with current events. We’ve had permanent air bases in the Persian Gulf states for 25 years, routinely have ships in the Med and Gulf (because we’re today’s 18th century British navy and own the world’s seas – however we mere citizens might feel about that), and even have a couple small bases left in Iraq. All these bases need regular office workers and cooks and mechanics like any other base, and tours there are generally 3, 6, or 12 months.
Yes, they are both special ops, and no, these were not long-planned. Both had less than 48 hours notice.
Are duty free shops at airports worth looking at? What are your favorite things to get?
For vacation travel, I get a couple of bottles of wine for the room. I refuse to pay the hotel’s markup for booze and it always feels like a big lift to try to find a wine shop when you first arrive after a long flight. Sometimes we just want to sit and chill with a bottle of bubbly for that first night.
I am a fraghead, so it’s my chance to smell a bunch of fragrances (designer, mostly, not niche) in one place. On paper strips, of course. I wouldn’t douse myself before a plane ride.
If you like gin, Hendrick’s Amazonia gin is only sold in duty free stores (I mean, you *can* get it online, but hugely marked up) and makes a really good in a gin and tonic.
Wine is overpriced so never, but we don’t have a problem running to a grocery store on arrival to get something cold. Liquor rarely as we’d rather pick up something local at the destination. We don’t smoke or wear perfume or eat a lot of chocolate so generally skip them. Sometimes we pick up a treat on the way home to use up local currency.
There’s a store at SFO (not duty free) that sells pretty decent local wines. I’m not above buying a bottle (or half bottle) to stash in my roller bag. Fortunately it’s past TSA (as is everything at SFO domestic).
That store is so expensive! I love that it features local wine and I take it that there’s a premium in convenience but good night the markup is nuts.
However I once went to a retreat in the redwoods that I didn’t realize was not going to serve any alcohol, even at their “dance party.” I flew through SFO and didn’t have my own transportation. I really regretted not spending $40 for a bottle of just-ok wine!
Sometimes to find a gift for people if we haven’t had time to shop properly. Otherwise never.
We recently discovered that our neighboring town has started the process of annexing about 120 acres of farmland surrounding our home for the 1st phase in a new housing development. We currently live out on the edge of a growing suburb in my husband’s childhood home on 2 acres and mostly have unobstructed views of flat fields. The development will take some time as they still need to do traffic studies, environmental impact study, design & construct the utility access, etc. So I would guess based on other development projects in our area we are at least 5 years away from homes being directly behind our property.
Questions for the Hive: I know we should start working on planting privacy hedges where it makes sense, asap.
Anyone have experience installing a large privacy hedge and have any suggestions? Our local extension office website recommends planting a variety of evergreen to avoid future diseases killing an entire hedge. But I just haven’t seen a lot of examples of random evergreen assortments looking nice. This hedge will be pretty far from our home and outbuildings, so the hedge can be very tall. And we’re in zone 4b, so evergreens over deciduous would make sense. Is this the kind of project that would make sense to hire a landscaper or an arborist?
I live in the northeast and we have all sorts of evergreens growing up alongside each other. I think they can definitely look nice together
Hire an expert for this and be prepared to spend big money, trees aren’t cheap and take a long time to grow.
Happy to hear you aren’t being NIMBY!
How are trees not cheap? I’m weeding them out of my yard every few weeks. I think of them as not just cheap but free.
Trees you want are expensive to plant and to maintain. Trees you don’t want are expensive to remove if you let them get past the seedling stage.
Tree sprouts like you pull from your garden are not likely to be large enough to form a hedge in 5 years, especially not in zone 4b. Saplings that are old enough to begin filling in on that time scale are going to be $$.
Mature trees are extraordinarily expensive. Most of those seedlings you’re pulling out would not ever become mature trees. It takes years and years for a seedling to become a mature tree. And big trees are hard to transport and plant.
OP does need seedlings that will maybe be trees in 15 years. She needs trees that will be big enough to provide privacy in like 2 years. Even among fast growing trees, that means she needs mature trees.
If buying a large tree, watch out for the root ball issue. Hopefully reputable retailers aren’t still allowing trees to form dangerous root balls, but big corporate chains certainly are.
What? Are you talking about weed trees?
Yes. As a gardener, I really laughed reading the OPs comment!
OP, it is great you are thinking ahead. You could try calling up your local governmental offices and asking to speak with their environmental group (or whatever they call it in your town). We have a “tree” person in our group who came out to our house for free and gave us great advice. In our area there are some restrictions on what you can plant, and as we have some disease issues locally, you really want advice from the experts. Also our local community college horticultural department has helpful advice. And then you hire an expert tree person.
You really want to buy more mature trees that are relatively carefree, as it sounds like you are less experienced with this? But you need to get very good recommendations of the required care, especially soon after planting. Nothing is sadder than seeing a line of young trees or tall bushes – dying.
If you plant trees in a way that looks more like a varied forest than just a one-line uniform hedge, it will be nicer to look at.
Agree, and unlike a line of uniform arborvitae, if one tree in a mixed planting dies, you can much more easily replace it without the entire thing looking a mess.
I’m not your zone, so these specific recommendations will not help, but a high-end home near me has a privacy hedge that is two rows, with two different trees. So row 1 is some variety of magnolia, and row 2, parallel to row 1 but with the trees offset, is something like leyland cypress (it’s not leyland cypress-just one of those type trees). I think it’s such a smart design. A lot of big, fast-growing trees like leyland cypress do not really live that long. This combo looks more polished and also provides some protection against disease or random deaths. I would want a professional to suggest actual trees, though.
Yes absolutely hire a professional
+1. If you’re in 4b, you’ll most likely also need to consider wind, which can be even more of a challenge to deal with than cold.
I’d consider hiring a landscaper. If you are living where I am guessing, you will likely need to do layers with sturdier trees on the outside and more hedges on the inside that are protected from the wind. (At least that’s how my family used to do them, and if you have the space, you can build in some future Christmas trees… ) I’d drive around and look at what the farmers have done for shelter belts.
I would hire a professional for consultation and design. In the meantime, I highly recommend chatGPT for ideas, we have done so for a different gardening project and it was very helpful (plant type selection, staggering, watch-outs for combinations etc).
My main piece of advice is that “fast growing” varieties are also fast dying. They have a limited life span.
My mom did a bunch of fast growing plantings of evergreens and they lasted about 10 years, and then she had a brown, dying hedge.
I guess it depends on how long you’re going to stay there.
Yep. Except that our dying fast-growing evergreens also started falling over so we had to pay to have them removed.
I just wanted to put in a plug for native trees or shrubs! A lot of them get incredibly tall (like 9′ flowers, 15′ shrubs) so a privacy hedge would be great, especially if you start early. You could use these resources to help you research:
– Prairie Moon Nursery to look at what’s tall and native in your zone
– Homegrown National Park for the keystone plants in your environment, those are likely trees and huge shrubs that will do well
– WildOnes.org and then look for a native chapter, you can find nurseries and native landscapers through there also.
Natives grow slower than a lot of non-natives, but if you have 5 years to plan now is the time. I would not look to start from seed or bare roots though, you don’t have that much time.
Another shout-out for native plants! OP – another benefit of native trees is that they are more likely to thrive in your area with less effort to maintain on your part.
yes I did a beautiful mixed native hedge of elderberry, serviceberry, etc. the elderberry especially grew outrageously fast.
Thanks everyone for the responses! This was really helpful! I’m definitely going to look into getting a local professional involved. We do hope to be in this home for a long time so I want to make sure we do this right. These suggestions have me starting to see more of the appeal of a mixture of plants and accounting for fast growth vs long term growth, etc.