Oh my goodness, Matt. I'm assuming you live in a rather open residential neighborhood, right? If rural, you might have more options but none the less, I can appreciate your situation. I too have retired neighbors that watch constantly...and they're my in-laws. We live rural and there's 3 acres of bottom land separating us, unfortunatly, it's mostly cleared and since marrying and moving out here almost 4 years ago - I have quite a collection of stories about this kind of thing....but I digress.

I would suggest perhaps lattice panels placed upright attatched to 4 x 4 post. If you purchased the plastic ones, you can also buy trim and make it look very nice. In front of that I would plant Japanese maples and some of the larger varieties of hosta. That should provide enough coverage that it would be very difficult to see through and also give you a nice garden view. Your neighbor would have to have pretty strong binoculars to see through that and even then it wouldn't be a clear view. I know this from experience even in open sunshine. Plus, this type of privacy fencing would give you many options to build on as you search for shrubs to replace or compliment the hostas. The plastic lattice is pretty strong if properly supported. 4 panels with post and trim will run around $250 but will last for years. Watch the end of year or season clearance and you can buy the trees & hostas for probably under $150. Total of $400 but what price do you put on your privacy?

Good luck and God bless you. I've already made a promise to myself that I WILL NOT spy and watch out of boredom when I retire. You're right, it's flat out CREEPY!

Paula

Ours (inlaws) where not spying nor creepy, but north of our property. We wanted a wind break, and planted cedar trees. It made a BIG hedge. Yes it took time, but it sure created privacy, and the need to walk all the way around... for the kids to go to granny and grandpa.

Now, I know I am allergic to cedar, and wouldn't do it again.

Plant something evergreen, to keep the privacy going all year long.

Glossy Abelia and Red Tipped Photinia come to mind, along with Nandinas.

Moni

Ornamental grasses might be a good choice. Mine got very tall in just a couple of years. Actually a mixed shrub/grass border could be very attractive. Nandina is a good choice too; mine got their size very quickly plus you have the gorgeous berries. Hollies are good but are very expensive and grow slowly. They do look great when fully grown out. My in-laws did hollies across their back fence and they completely block the neighbors back yard now but it took about 15 years!

The abelia and photinia are good choices too. I have Edward Goucher abelia and it is about 5x5. The local park has photinia and it is gorgeous.

Good luck. The only thing worse than nosy neighbors would be nosy in-laws!

Whatever you do, don't plant a hedge row of just one kind of bush/plant. As a master gardener I get way to many questions on how to save a hedge, when one bush gets infected and dies. If the whole hedge is the same kind of plant, the whole hedge can go at any given time. But if you inter plant, at least every other plant might survive.

Moni

Matt,

There's a couple of things to consider when planting a hege for a privacy screen. First of all, what you can plant hinges on what kind of soil you have. Some plants do very well in clay, for example, but others do not. Most plants do well in sandy loam, but a few need more acidic soil than others. So keep your soil type and pH in mind when choosing your plants.

Secondly, be sure whatever type of fence, trellis or plants you choose to use do not violate any of your Home Owners Association rules, assuming that your use of the term 'neighborhood association' means that you have a HOA. Some HOAs have very strict rules about fences and hedges.

Third, if you want year-round privacy, be sure to choose evergreen trees or shrubs. Also, to help keep your sanity, choose very well-adapted plants that do not need a lot of upkeep/maintenance and that are resistant to pests and diseases.

I agree with what Moni said about a mixed planting. If you plant a long row of one type of tree or shrub and it is hit by disease, the disease is likely to move from one plant to another, or to hit all of them at once. Also, think about how plants grow in nature in clusters of multiple types of plants, and not in single rows of perfectly-spaced identical plants. A monoculture hedge of one type of plant is pretty tedious and dull to look at too, whereas a mixed planting looks natural and is a delight to view.

Be sure to space your plants at the recommended spacing and be patient and wait for them to fill in. Most people who want a privacy hedge tend to space their plants too closly together in order to get an 'instant hedge' and then they spend the next decade fighting plants that are too close to one another to grow well.

There are tons of plants you could use. I always recommend hollies like Dwarf Burford (shorter, but still tall--mine are about 8 years old and about 10-12 tall and 4' wide) because they form a very dense planting in just a few years and are very disease resistant. We have those here, and Southern Wax Myrtles (the standard ones, not the dwarf ones), but there are all kinds of evergreens that could meet your needs. For example, some of the shorter and more compact magnolias like 'Little Gem' or trees that spread out very wide like the Chaste Tree (Vitex agnus-castus) although it isn't evergreen. You could choose from the many kinds of junipers or pines or other conifers, or from broadleaf evergreens like hollies, photinias, or abelias, or you could use deciduous shrubs (like one of the viburnums) or understory type trees like redbuds, etc.
I like Glenda's recommendation of ornamental grasses too. Some of them get quite large and are very beautiful.

If I needed a really quick, almost 'instant' hedge and I didn't care it if was evergreen or not, I'd plant cannas. If you plant the tall types, they'll make a pretty solid screen in just a year or too. I have cannas in the shade of a pecan tree and, while that don't bloom as well as cannas in full sun would, they still or very pretty and lush and do bloom occasionally. In full sun, my cannas tend to get 4-6' tall but in dappled shade they get a couple of feet taller.

If you put up a fence or trellis and grow vines on it, there are some that stay evergreen or mostly evergreen and do tolerate shade. American Cross Vine is one that I used in our shady backyard in Fort Worth and it had leaves on it from about February through December, so the fence wasn't bare for long. Many of the coral honeysuckles, like 'Pink Lemonade', for example, grow fast and bloom fairly well in part-shade to dappled shade. Virginia creeper does tend to be invasive and it isn't evergreen, but I love it and have it in several places in our landscape.

To give you an idea of what kinds of shrubs and trees do well in much of Oklahoma, I've linked the website for Sooner Plant Farms because their photos and descriptions are very, very good. In addition to browsing their tree and shrubs pages, they have a 'Plant Selector' and you can plug in your data and get their recommendations.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Sooner Plant Farms

We are in a residential area, smack dab in the middle of OKC. While we do have a neighborhood association, it's more of a loose confederate than some stifling bureaucracy. It's an old neighborhood; our house was built in 1936, and there's a pretty good mix of income levels. Our neighbor to the north has a well manicured lawn that she hires a landscaping company to maintain and our neighbor to the south parks their car in their lawn. :) So I think it would be pretty hard for them to enforce any uniform rules.

Anyway, on to the privacy hedge...

Thanks for that link Dawn. I have never heard of that company. The plant selector is very useful. I'm intrigued by the whole ornamental grass idea. I've never grown any, but i've been looking for a place to plant some. I like the big bluestem. Would these grow in the shade? Also, I want something that will grow up more than out and most ornamental grasses that i've seen seem to grow in giant clumps.

I've had this idea for a trellis where rather than one long trellis, I would build several 4'x8' trellis panels and sink them into the ground. Then I could alternate a different vine on each panel for some variety.

For the panels, I'll build a 4'x8' frame out of cedar 2x4's, with an additional 2' of overhang at the bottom to sink into the ground. Instead of using more wood for the lattice work, I want to attach eye bolts every 6-12" around the interior of the frame and weave some of that light brown hairy rope (not sure what it's called) in a random pattern to create a kind of web for the vines to grow up. I figure that if I grow deciduous vines, in the spring and summer i'll have leaf coverage and in the fall and winter, it will have some sculptural interest.

Maybe it's just one of those ideas that i'll never get around to, but I think it could work.

-Matt