Be careful of the type of bamboo you plant it can be invasive. A lot of your fast growers are either invasive or weak when they reach maturity. I would stay away from fast growing trees for that reason. However, there are several shrubs that would work for you. It's really up to you as to what you like. A good local nursey can help you decide.

How about grasses? They would give you height and width. You can leave the grass up until early spring. It grows pretty quickly. This is not the best pic to show you, but it might give you an idea. I don't have the exact name, but I'm pretty sure it is a miscanthus (plant on the right closest to the house)

You will regret bamboo, I think. it is way to invasive. There are several ornamental grasses and a few very fast growing boxwoods that would work. But if you want quick results, you have to buy larger pricier plants and plant them close together. You should check the price of plants and install versus just getting the fence. If I understand your post, you eventually plan on taking out the plants and putting in the fence. Then you have wasted the money on the plants, unless you transplant them somewhere else.

And if you do plants, you might could mix them up,instead of just a hedgerow. For that matter, how about a permanent landscaped island instead of a fence? How big is the area you are looking at?

I like that puffy grass. Would something like that grow in a season or take years to reach that height?

I plan to leave whatever I plant up--- inside or outside of an eventual fence.

I hadn't thought of mixing up the plants. That could look really nice.

I had looked up a I think American Boxwood that seemed to be fast growing.

A fence is a good $1500-2500 at the minimum we've found for the entire yard/side. If it's a few years down the road, it's someone else's problem if I move to add a fence. :)

Plants I could plant myself if they're fast growing and not massive from the start and hopefully would give us a little yard privacy the next year or two.

A landscaped island?

The side of the yard is a good 30-40 feet open to the street-- that would at least block the street view a little.

You have to be really careful about making "fast-growing" a criteria by which to select plants because with many trees and shrubs, fast-growing tends to equate to weaker plants that are fast-dying. That's just reality. I'd aim for moderate growers that aren't going to die about the time they reach a decent size.

I'm going to guess that by a landscaped island, she meant perhaps a slightly elevated berm of soil with plants planted into the berm. If you have a berm that is, let's say 18-24" tall, and then you plant young plants that are a foot or two tall, you'll have the added height of the berm to help block sound and provide privacy right from the start. Some people who live a few miles from us didn't like the view from their rural front yard so they put up a berm of earth that is 4-6' tall and then planted native prairie plants, including shrubs, grasses and trees on top of it. They had instant privacy from the start thanks to their tall berm, and then it has gotten even better over time as the plants mature. The height of their berm is excessive, but I guess they really hated the view and wanted to block it right from the start, which they did.

A mixed planting usually is much more attractive than a single row of shrubs lined up like soldiers. It looks more attractive and is healthier too. When you have a monoculture, if disease strikes, it can move right down the line of identical plants, killing them as it goes. With a polyculture, that is less likely to occur.

I'm going to link the website of Sooner Plant Farm for you because they have wonderful photos and thorough descriptions of everything they carry. It is great as a reference whether you intend to buy their plants or not. I often go to their website and browse it when trying to find a particular plant for a particular situation. The only problem with going to their website is that it makes you want to buy a lot of plants.

One of the fastest growing plants we have here at our house is Chaste Tree (Vitex agnus castus). It is a tree that grows very wide, more like a shrub, and it grows both upward and outward very quickly. Ours is about 15 years old. If you find your chaste tree growing too tall, you can prune it back off very low to the ground and it will regrow in no time at all. It is not evergreen, but it would look very pretty in a mixed planting, and it flowers in the summer month.

Canna lilies come in various heights and are fast growing, but also are not evergreen. They can get tall and dense relatively quickly. Mine usually are 6-8' tall by June of a typical year.

Remember, too, to choose plants that are tolerant of whatever soil you have. If you have well-drained soil, you can plant almost anything, but if you have heavy, dense clay soil, you need to select plants that tolerate a slower-draining soil.

Sooner Plant Farm

The planted berm is exactly what I meant. As far as evergreen, a few hollies mixed with the ornamental grass would be good. Then maybe some salvia, daisies, and boulders for added curb appeal. And it would not have to be one long berm. Several smaller ones would be great to. The chaste tree is very hardy in Oklahoma. That would look good, I think, with some desert willow and yucca as it all is drought tolerant and just seems to survive on its own. But...not all evergreen.

If you have berms for privacy and sound reduction, eventually an ornamental black fence can keep out the dogs and trespassers and look good while doing it. Or a wood rail fence. Jeez I could just keep typing ideas...my head is going now!

The grass should grow as tall as it will get in a season. The mass of the plant will take longer.

are you in OKC? You are welcome to drive by and look at my plantings. It might give you some ideas.

Here's a little closer look.

Scott, Ooops, I said 'she' and should have said 'he'. No offense intended! I love berms and am thinking of putting one in our side yard so I can grow some plants there that need well-drained soil, because that area has had water standing in it nonstop for the last month and this might be my chance to convince Tim we should take out the bermuda grass there and replace it with a lower-maintenance planting of native plants, well-mulched of course.

I love Desert Willow too, and just want to mention to anyone who is not familiar with them that they are not desert plants, and they are not willow trees either. They are high-quality native trees with narrow leaves like willows and their blooms almost look like miniature orchids. We have two of them and I wish we had more. We have the older, native ones that can easily get 15'-20' high or taller in just a few years, but there now are named cultivars that stay shorter. I see them a lot at several of the shopping centers we frequent in Texas (the Dallas-Fort Worth metro is much closer to us than OKC) and a lot of those seem to stay about 8-10' tall, though I am not sure if someone is pruning them to keep them that way. At the entry way to a shopping center with a Sam's Club and Wal-Mart side by side in Denton, TX, they have used desert willow trees, red yucca and native grasses in their median plantings en masse and they are spectacular. Those plantings also rebounded really quickly from damage from baseball to softball-sized hail that hit them last year. I was impressed by how resilient they were.

Last year I planted 3 desert willows. They seem to have survived the winter. Are they slow to leaf out or is it the strange year we are having? Dawn are yours in clay or amended soil? Mine are in I amended soil and have just started to really get going. The day of sunshine was amazing. If I survive my todo list this week,had to take a break several times today. I am so used to doing NOTHING that i guess that I am out of shape. Ha Ha