(Perma)Culture and Sanity

Useful Trees and Shrubs for Windbreak Plantings

This is not an exhaustive list, but is intended to give an idea of what sorts of plants can be incorporated into windbreaks. Plants for a Future has a very good, searchable database of plants from around the world, including descriptions such as soil needs, water and sunlight needs, etc.

By using a broad range of plant types, sizes and functions in your windbreak you can create mini-ecosystems that support a wide variety of users including both humans and wildlife, in addition to the windbreak's usefulness at slowing wind.

The plants listed here are adapted to the northern New Mexico highlands in the U.S. This area is at 35° latitude, ranges from 4,000 to 8,000 feet in elevation, and gets 15 to 20 inches of rainfall annually. Temperatures range from -20°F to 90°F.

Evergreen Windbreak Trees and Shrubs

Evergreen Trees (plant 8 feet apart in straight or zig-zag rows...zig-zag better)

• Piñon (wildlife and human food)
• Pines (Austrian, Afgan, Ponderosa: tea, medicinal, wildlife shelter)
• Firs, Spruces (wildlife, teas—need high elevation and more moisture than pines)

Evergreen Shrubs (5 - 6 feet apart in rows)

• Junipers (Rocky Mountain, Redberry: flavoring, fenceposts, wildlife food, degraded land reclamation)

Supplemental Windbreak Plants

Your windbreak can include a wide variety of plants designed to confer other advantages besides simply blocking harsh winds. These advantages can include supplying wildlife with food and shelter, supplying fruit for human comsumption, yielding fenceposts and poles, offering fire protection (most deciduous plants) or simply beautifying your surroundings. A sampling of useful plants—including some of their uses to humans or animals—are listed below.

Deciduous Shrubs

• Bamboo (Bambusca spp.: edible shoots, crafts, garden poles)
• Skunkbush Sumac (Rhus trilobata: wildlife food, medicinal, edible, xeric)
• Banana Yucca (Yucca bacata: food, fiber, beauty, xeric)
• Mountain Mahogany (Cercocarpus montanus: wildlife food, xeric, beauty)
• Golden Currant (Ribes aureum, raspberries, strawberries, etc. (edible, wildlife foods)
• Native Plum (Prunus americana: fruit, wildlife food, beauty)
• Lilac (Syringa vulgaris: wildlife habitat, beauty)
• New Mexico Olive (Forestiera neomexicana: birds, xeric, beauty)
• New Mexico Elderberry (Sambucus cerulea: medicinal, fruits, wildlife food, crafts)

Deciduous Trees

• Elm (Ulmus spp.: workshop stumps, firewood, wildfire protection, mulch, degraded land reclamation)
• Ash (Fraxinus spp.: coppice, tool handles, firewood, wildfire protection, mulch)
• Persimmon (Diospyrus spp.: fruits, wildlife food, tool handles, fenceposts, mulch)
• New Mexico Locust (Robinia neomexicana: coppice, fenceposts, firewood, nitrogen-fixation, mulch, xeric)
• Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia: same as NM Locust)
• Hackberry (Celtis occidentalis: wildlife food, shade, xeric)
• Willows (Salix spp.: crafts, coppice, medicinal, mulch)
• Fruit trees (fruits, wildlife food, beauty)
• Almonds (Prunus dulcis: nuts, wildlife food, beauty)

Useful and Ornamental Plants

• Comfrey (Symphytum spp.: medicinal, mulch production, smothering grasses under fruit trees)
• Umbelliferae (carrot, dill, fennel, cilantro, etc: beneficial insect habitat)
• Wildflowers (beauty, wildlife food, xeric)
• Winterfat (Ceratoides lanata: xeric, wildlife, range improvement)
• Chamisa (Chrysothamnus nauseosus: xeric, erosion control, degraded land reclamation)
• Four-Wing Saltbush (Atriplex canescens: xeric, degraded land reclamation)
• Apache Plume (Fallugia paradoxa: wildlife, beauty, degraded land reclamation)
• Bunch grasses (wildlife food, soil improvement, beauty, xeric)
• Spike or deep-rooted plants (salsify, daikon, carrot, comfrey, alfalfa, bunch grasses: deep soil improvement)
• False Wild Indigo (Baptisia spp.: ornamental, natural dye, nitrogen-fixer)
• Wormwood/Mugwort/Sages (Artemisia spp.: very xeric, medicinal, ritual)
• Yarrow (Achillea spp.: medicinal, ornamental, beneficial insect habitat)