big city location ....

sorry if i missed it... ken

Oh weird, it used to say my zone right next to my name… I’m just outside of Baltimore, zone 7

I suggest an evergreen species (not a cultivar) that is native to where you are, because a hedge is a monoculture.

For example, if there are Eastern White Cedar forests where you are, then use it for your hedge. Your monoculture hedge will only die if the Eastern White Cedar forests around you die. Anything else carries a higher monoculture risk.

Note that in a hedge, the characteristic appearance of the individual specimens disappears in the overall appearance of the hedge, regardless of whatever evergreen (or any other plant) you use. The beauty of a hedge comes from the uniform mass planting, IMHO of course.

Be patient and good luck!

The risks of monoculture plantings tend to be exaggerated. Rarely will one encounter some sort of pathogen or insect issue that will wipe out multiple adjacent plantings. I can only think of a couple of plants that might apply to and the risks of planting them en masse have been widely publicized. Skip laurels are not fazed by much of anything other than severe drought so a pretty safe (and popular) choice.

As to something "prettier", I guess that depends on what you find "pretty" :-) Nothing wrong with the laurels - fragrant white flowers in spring and glossy dark green leaves - but any other flowering broadleaved evergreen of size popular in your area would work. Personally, I find conifer hedges pretty uninteresting.

Well, gardengal48, before I installed a hedge at my previous property, I researched the issue for nearly a year, drove and looked around and I have seen hedges that died, in part or in total, and I still see dying hedges when I drive around, monoculture death is definitely not uncommon.

In contrast, my native arborvitae hedge that I installed several decades ago is still thriving, I know it because it's not far away from where I currently am :-)

As to pretty, you can have a pretty stand alone specimen to your own liking even, but if you mass plant that specimen, then the overall effect will become pretty garish in a garden setting, IMHO. A 'boring' more subdued stand alone specimen is more suitable for mass planting to create a beautiful hedge, that's what I meant in my previous post, and that's again IMHO :-)

Fair enough. And I’m not sure what I mean by prettier either lol just I guess that for some reason blue green and yellow green have always struck me stronger in the feels than green green. Having said that, a skip laurel definitely checks all of my boxes as far as ease of maintenance and size requirements, Evergreen leaves etc. plus I honestly didn’t know they had fragrant flowers So I may just pick these up later today. Thanks guys :-)