Best Privacy Trees for Your Yard: Compare Prices Online

Last updated: April 2026 | Prices compared across 5+ online nurseries

Privacy trees are the one plant category where price comparison isn't just helpful — it's essential. Nobody buys one privacy tree. You buy 8, 12, 15, sometimes 20 trees to line a property border, and every dollar of per-tree price difference gets multiplied across the entire row. A $5 savings per tree across a 12-tree purchase is $60. A $10 savings — which is absolutely realistic when comparing nurseries on arborvitae — puts $120 back in your pocket before you've lifted a shovel.

Spring is the ideal planting window for privacy trees. Get them in the ground in April and they'll put on a full season of root growth before their first winter. Established roots mean faster top growth starting in year two, which means faster privacy. Every month you wait is a month of root establishment you lose.

Here are the best privacy trees for different situations, what they cost, and the honest trade-offs that nurseries don't always mention in their product descriptions.

Quick Comparison

Variety	Zones	Growth Rate	Mature Height	Spacing	Deer Resistant?	Price Range
Emerald Green Arborvitae	2-7	6-9 in/year	12-15'	3-4' apart	No	$20-$60
Green Giant Arborvitae	5-8	3-5 ft/year*	40-60'	5-6' apart	Yes	$15-$55
Leyland Cypress	6-10	3-4 ft/year	40-60'	5-8' apart	Yes	$25-$60
Skip Laurel	5-8	12-24 in/year	10-15'	4-5' apart	Moderate	$25-$50
Nellie Stevens Holly	6-9	2-3 ft/year	15-25'	5-6' apart	Yes	$30-$65

*Green Giant growth rate is 3-5 ft/year once established, typically starting in year 2-3. First-year growth from a shipped tree is significantly slower while the root system develops. Nurseries don't always make this distinction clear in their marketing.

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Before You Order 15 Trees: Check These First

A privacy tree row is one of the largest single investments most homeowners make in their landscape, and it's also one of the hardest to undo. Before you buy, spend 30 minutes verifying a few things that can turn a $500 investment into a $500 mistake.

Property line setbacks. Most municipalities require trees to be planted a minimum distance from property lines — typically 3-5 feet, sometimes more for large-growing species. Check your local zoning code or call the building department. Planting too close can result in a neighbor complaint, a code violation, and forced removal after the trees are established. The cost of removing 15 mature arborvitae is substantial and deeply frustrating.

HOA restrictions. Many homeowner associations restrict tree height, species, or placement along property lines. Some ban evergreen screens entirely above a certain height. Review your covenants before ordering, not after 15 trees arrive on your doorstep.

Utility easements. If your property border runs along an underground utility corridor (gas, electric, sewer, cable), you may not be able to plant there at all. Call 811 — the free national utility locator service — and they'll mark any underground lines on your property before you dig. Discovering a gas line at the bottom of your 12th tree hole is a scenario you want to avoid.

Realistic growth expectations. Advertised growth rates assume ideal conditions: full sun, good soil, adequate water, and an established root system. A Green Giant Arborvitae in well-drained loam with irrigation in zone 7 will hit 3-5 feet/year. The same tree in heavy clay soil with sporadic rainfall in zone 5 won't come close. Know your conditions and set your expectations accordingly. Privacy takes time even with "fast-growing" varieties — plan for 3-5 years before a newly planted row provides meaningful screening, regardless of what the nursery catalog implies.

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Emerald Green Arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis 'Smaragd')

Emerald Green is the single most popular privacy tree in America, and its dominance in the market comes down to one characteristic: it's narrow. At just 3-4 feet wide at maturity, Emerald Green can be planted in tight spaces along fence lines, property edges, and side yards where larger trees simply won't fit. A row of Emerald Green spaced 3-4 feet apart creates a dense, columnar wall of green that tops out at 12-15 feet — tall enough for privacy, narrow enough to leave usable yard space.

The foliage is dense, year-round green with a slight emerald sheen that distinguishes it from other arborvitae varieties. It maintains its shape naturally without much pruning — unlike Leyland Cypress, which tends to get shaggy without annual maintenance. An Emerald Green row planted and watered properly looks good with almost no intervention for decades.

Pricing ranges from $20-$60 depending on height. Smaller 2-3 foot trees start around $20-$30 and grow 6-9 inches per year — which means you're looking at 5-7 years before they reach a useful screening height. Larger 4-5 foot trees run $40-$60 but give you a meaningful head start. On a 15-tree purchase, the difference between buying 2-footers at $22 each ($330) and 4-footers at $48 each ($720) is $390. That $390 buys you roughly 2-3 years of faster privacy. Whether that's worth it depends on your patience and your budget.

The deer problem — and it's serious: Deer browse arborvitae. In areas with heavy deer pressure, they'll eat the foliage from the bottom up during winter, leaving you with a row of bare trunks topped by green pom-poms. This isn't occasional nibbling — in some suburban and exurban areas, deer treat arborvitae as a winter food source. If you see deer regularly in your neighborhood, Emerald Green is a risky investment. Green Giant is naturally deer-resistant and is the better choice where deer are present.

Zones 2-7. Emerald Green struggles with heat and humidity in zone 8+ — if you're in the Southeast, look at Leyland Cypress or Nellie Stevens Holly instead.

→ Compare Emerald Green Arborvitae prices

Green Giant Arborvitae (Thuja standishii × plicata 'Green Giant')

Green Giant is the speed demon of the privacy tree world. Once established — and "once established" is the critical qualifier — it puts on 3-5 feet of growth per year, which is fast enough that you can almost watch it happen. A 2-foot tree planted in April can reach 8-10 feet within 3-4 years under good conditions. No other commonly available privacy tree comes close to that growth rate.

It's also naturally deer-resistant, which is the other major reason people choose it over Emerald Green. The foliage has a different texture and chemistry that deer generally leave alone. If deer are a factor on your property — and they're a factor in most suburban and rural areas east of the Mississippi — Green Giant eliminates a problem that Emerald Green can't solve.

Pricing ranges from $15-$55 depending on size. Small 1-2 foot trees can be found for $15-$25, which makes large-quantity purchases dramatically more affordable. Fifteen Green Giant at $18 each is $270 total. Fifteen at $45 each is $675. The small trees catch up within 2-3 years because the growth rate is so aggressive — this is the privacy tree category where "buy small" delivers the most compelling ROI.

The size warning — and people consistently underestimate this: Green Giant gets LARGE. 40-60 feet tall and 12-18 feet wide at maturity. This is not a tree for a small yard, near a house, near power lines, near a patio, or anywhere that doesn't have room for a tree the size of a mature spruce. Green Giant looks manageable at 6 feet. At 30 feet, it's casting shade across your neighbor's entire yard and its root system is competing with everything within 15 feet. Emerald Green stays at 12-15 feet. Green Giant does not stop at 15 feet. It keeps going.

If you have a long, open property border with room to grow and no nearby structures, Green Giant fills it faster and cheaper than any alternative. If you have a 40-foot-wide suburban backyard, Emerald Green or Skip Laurel is the better choice.

Spacing: 5-6 feet apart for a solid screen. Zones 5-8.

→ Compare Green Giant Arborvitae prices

Leyland Cypress (× Cuprocyparis leylandii)

Leyland Cypress is the default privacy tree in the southern half of the United States — zones 6-10 — where arborvitae can struggle with heat and humidity. It grows 3-4 feet per year, develops a thick, feathery screen, and handles the clay soils and summer heat of the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast without complaint. Drive through any subdivision in Virginia, the Carolinas, or Georgia and you'll see Leyland Cypress rows everywhere.

Pricing runs $25-$60 for a 3-5 foot tree. Widely available from southern nurseries and ships well because the foliage is more flexible and less breakage-prone than arborvitae during transit.

The honest warning — and this one matters: Leyland Cypress has a disease problem that you should understand before committing to a 15-tree purchase. Seiridium canker and Cercospora needle blight are fungal diseases that can kill large, established Leyland Cypress trees with alarming speed. A healthy 30-foot tree can be dead within 1-2 years of infection. The disease spreads through the row, and once it arrives, there's no cure — only removal. This isn't a hypothetical risk. It's happened to enough homeowners that extension services across the Southeast have published advisories about it.

Does this mean you shouldn't plant Leyland Cypress? Not necessarily. Millions of Leyland Cypress trees grow healthily for decades without disease. But the risk is real, and if you're in zones 6-7 where both arborvitae and Leyland Cypress grow well, arborvitae is the more durable long-term investment. If you're in zones 8-10 where arborvitae won't thrive, Leyland Cypress and Nellie Stevens Holly are your main options — and Nellie Stevens doesn't carry the same disease risk.

→ Compare Leyland Cypress prices

Skip Laurel (Prunus laurocerasus 'Schipkaensis')

Skip Laurel offers something none of the conifers on this list can: a broadleaf evergreen look with glossy, dark green leaves instead of needles or scales. The visual effect is completely different — more formal, more textured, more like a hedge you'd see in an English garden than a wall of evergreen cones. It grows 10-15 feet tall and can be pruned into a formal hedge or left informal.

But the real reason to choose Skip Laurel is shade tolerance. If your privacy problem is on the north side of your house, under existing tree canopy, or along a property line that gets less than 4-5 hours of direct sun, every conifer on this list will thin out and become sparse. Conifers need sun to maintain dense foliage. Skip Laurel thrives in shade — genuine shade, not just dappled afternoon light — and maintains thick coverage in conditions that would starve an arborvitae.

Pricing ranges from $25-$50 for a 2-3 foot plant. Growth rate is 12-24 inches per year — the slowest on this list. Privacy from Skip Laurel is a 3-5 year project at minimum. But if shade is your reality, Skip Laurel is one of the very few options that actually works.

What to know before buying: The cultivar name 'Schipkaensis' matters. Generic cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) is less cold-hardy. The Schipkaensis selection is reliable down to zone 5, which is significantly hardier than the species type. Make sure the nursery specifies 'Schipkaensis' or 'Skip' in the product name — not just "cherry laurel."

Spacing: 4-5 feet apart. Zones 5-8.

→ Compare Skip Laurel prices

Nellie Stevens Holly (Ilex 'Nellie R. Stevens')

Nellie Stevens Holly is the privacy tree that does well in conditions where the other options on this list struggle. It handles heat, humidity, clay soil, partial shade, and southern growing conditions without the disease susceptibility of Leyland Cypress. It produces red berries in winter (on female plants, which most Nellie Stevens are) that attract birds and add winter interest. The foliage is dense, dark green, and evergreen year-round.

At 15-25 feet tall at maturity with a dense pyramidal shape, Nellie Stevens splits the difference between the massive Green Giant (40-60 feet) and the compact Emerald Green (12-15 feet). It's a realistic size for most suburban properties — tall enough for effective screening, not so tall that it becomes a problem.

Pricing runs $30-$65 for a 3-5 foot tree. Nellie Stevens grows about 2-3 feet per year — fast enough to reach useful screening height within 4-5 years, slow enough to be manageable.

What to know before buying: Hardy in zones 6-9. If you're in the Mid-Atlantic or Southeast and debating between Leyland Cypress and Nellie Stevens, give serious consideration to Nellie Stevens. It's slower-growing, but it's more disease-resistant, longer-lived, requires less maintenance, handles partial shade better, and adds winter berry interest. The Leyland Cypress reaches screening height faster but carries disease risk. The Nellie Stevens takes a year or two longer but is more likely to still be standing 25 years from now.

Spacing: 5-6 feet apart.

→ Compare Nellie Stevens Holly prices

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How Many Privacy Trees Do You Need?

The number depends on the variety and how dense you want the screen. Here's the math for common scenarios:

• Emerald Green Arborvitae: 3-4 feet apart. A 50-foot property line needs 13-17 trees.
• Green Giant Arborvitae: 5-6 feet apart. A 50-foot line needs 9-10 trees.
• Leyland Cypress: 5-8 feet apart. A 50-foot line needs 7-10 trees.
• Skip Laurel: 4-5 feet apart. A 50-foot line needs 10-13 plants.
• Nellie Stevens Holly: 5-6 feet apart. A 50-foot line needs 9-10 trees.

Tighter spacing fills in faster but creates a more crowded row at maturity. Wider spacing takes longer to close gaps but gives each tree room to develop its natural form. For most homeowners, erring toward the tighter end of the recommended range is the right call — a slightly crowded screen at 15 years is a better problem than visible gaps at 5 years.

When buying in bulk, price per tree is the single largest variable you control. A $5 price difference across 15 trees is $75. A $10 difference is $150. Some nurseries offer quantity discounts on privacy trees. Check each retailer's pricing at the volume you actually need — the per-unit cost sometimes drops at 10+ or 20+ trees.

How to Save Money on Privacy Trees

• Buy small. This is where patience pays off more than any other plant category. A 2-foot Green Giant costs $15-$20 and grows 3-5 feet per year once established. Within 2-3 seasons it matches a $50 five-footer you could have bought instead. On a 10-tree order, buying 2-footers instead of 5-footers can save $200-$350. That's not pocket change — it's a significant fraction of the total project cost.

• Compare prices across nurseries. We track pricing at multiple retailers. On a 10-tree purchase, the cheapest retailer routinely saves $50-$100 versus the most expensive. On 15-20 trees, the savings break $100 consistently. This is the highest-leverage price comparison on the entire site because you're multiplying per-unit savings across so many trees.

• Plant in spring. Trees planted in April establish faster than fall plantings in most climates. Better establishment means faster growth starting in year two, which means privacy sooner. Fall planting works too — the trees will survive — but spring gives them the longest possible growing season to build roots.

• Skip the checkout upsells. Many nurseries add fertilizer, mycorrhizae, root stimulant, and protective sprays at checkout. These add $5-$15 per tree and are largely unnecessary for established privacy tree varieties like arborvitae and Leyland Cypress. A wheelbarrow of compost from your local garden center mixed into the planting holes costs $15-$20 total and does the same job. Redirect the upsell budget toward an extra tree or two.

• Do the math on total cost, not sticker price. A $28 tree with free shipping beats a $22 tree with $12 shipping. Some nurseries offer free shipping on large orders. Others charge per-tree shipping that adds up fast on a 10+ tree purchase. Always calculate total cost to your door before deciding.

→ Browse all privacy tree price comparisons