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Windmills coming! Any ideas on how to hide the view?

Posted by carol6ma_7ari zones 6 & 7a (My Page) on
Wed, Jan 20, 10 at 10:09

My great ocean view includes Cuttyhunk Island and the lighthouse on Martha's Vineyard, and also Horseneck Beach in Westport MA. We were lucky enough to find a cheap former rental cottage and put in various perennial and shrub beds to frame the best view. Now (or in a couple of years) it looks like we'll be staring at 166 very tall windmills with aircraft lights on the tops. So does anyone have any ideas on how to screen the view yet allow some ocean view bits to be enjoyed? Tall bushes? Willow trees? My idea is to veil the windmills but not obscure the ocean blue.

Carol


Follow-Up Postings:

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RE: Windmills coming! Any ideas on how to hide the view?

IDK if it will be possible to screen em..I wish you the best in your project!


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RE: Windmills coming! Any ideas on how to hide the view?

YEAH! Turn around and face EAST!


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RE: Windmills coming! Any ideas on how to hide the view?

Good luck.

I'd go with trees.


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RE: Windmills coming! Any ideas on how to hide the view?

We only have one in our town and it's in an industrial area but there has been a lot of grumbling about the fact that it has definitely affected the view.

There is no way to easily camouflage it and screening it would be an excellent option. You could plant a Rose of Sharon barrier but my guess is that it's gong to only accentuate what is rising skyward above it.

My suggestion is to consider adding panels of lattice around your sitting area, leaving wide spaces between them to allow you to enjoy the view. You could even add a pergola type top -- something you could cover with canvas or with clematis, wisteria, and maybe some trumpet vines and well, any other vine that tickles your fancy.

We did that with a metal gazebo to provide it with a strong and sturdy support structure and it has been a fabulous addition and very inexpensive to put together with L brackets and screws.

Cathy (MA)


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RE: Windmills coming! Any ideas on how to hide the view?

Personally I agree w/corgicorner as in Yeah! I live on Cape Cod & while this is not Cuttyhunk, it's well past the time to turn to alternate energy sources. Wind or solar & I'm all for it. I'd recommend that you proudly show off the view.


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RE: Windmills coming! Any ideas on how to hide the view?

I agree. We need renewable, safe clean energy, and what better way than wind? I get kind of impatient with people who, when asked would probably agree, and who claim to be pro environment, but as soon as they learn that it'll be close by, all of a sudden it's NIMBY.
I've seen the wind farms in CA and upstate NY. I don't really think that they're unattractive. Certainly not as much as solar farms. People actually buy gaudy colored windmills to place on their property, and who thinks that the windmills in the Netherlands should be screened from view? Lighthouses are an unnatural "blight" if you will, on the coastline, but who doesn't pay more for real estate with a view of one? I spend more time in York Beach than on the Cape and Islands, but I do get down there, and I'd gladly accept the windfarm within the view from my cottage, especially if it meant cleaner electricity, and hopefully some day, cheaper. I do question the econmics of placing them offshore, as far as construction and maintenance costs, vs onshore, but at least it's wind, and it's a step in the right direction. Who knows, maybe in 10 years when people see that it's really not the eyesore that they imagine, the idea will spread, and they'll get to see my view "spoiled" too. I'm betting by then they'll be claiming that they had them first, and others are now copying the idea.


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RE: Windmills coming! Any ideas on how to hide the view?

Personally I find windmills kind of cool looking.

However, if you have a problem with them...Eastern Red ceder is skinny, so you can plant some to block strategic parts of your view from the house and not others.

Best I can come up with.


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RE: Windmills coming! Any ideas on how to hide the view?

I stand corrected, if not admonished for my desire to not see my fine ocean view sullied. I frankly don't care about the green savings but was focused on the aesthetics.

So what I have done is create a middle- distance distraction: a large (1800sq. ft.) high-fenced vegetable garden between our house and where I think the windmills will be. This serves several purposes: it keeps the ever increasing local deer population from dining off my salad fixin's, it got me to increase the size of my small garden which kept running out of space as I added more kinds of veggies and fruit, it partly blocks the summer view of 11 RVs which are brought in, May to October, on the other side of the small brackish pond of our wetlands boundary, it made it easier for me to go organic, it provides me with many tall fence posts to top with decorative items (such as pinwheels) AND it eventually will somewhat block the distant view of wind turbines.

Thanks to you all.

Carol


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