"Walls of stone, brick or stucco could accomplish the same ends, but at far greater expense. Living walls have added advantages beyond economy: the beauty of their foliage color and texture; their seasonal displays of colorful flowers and berries; their usefulness as bird and butterfly habitat; their benefit as a source of cut greens for bouquets, wreaths and mantle displays."

"With so many plants to choose from, the first quality to consider is the shrub's ultimate size in maturity; its height and spread eight-to-ten years down the line. On small properties where only a few feet of space are available for a hedge, columnar shrubs with small leaves or needles that can easily be trimmed are more compatible than large, arching bushes that will quickly outgrow the area. Where there's plenty of room, larger, fast-growing shrubs will give you immediate gratification and you can let them spread to their mature size without clipping. Consider also whether it's really necessary for your screen to be evergreen. In places where the privacy barrier is important in all four seasons, stick to evergreens, but in locations where you'll be spending time mainly in summer and fall, broaden the choices and select deciduous, flowering shrubs for added color and fragrance. A hedge of 'Hansa' roses (hybrid rugosas) with sweetly scented magenta flowers and red autumn hips is unsurpassable."

"An easy way to determine the desired height of your privacy barrier is to have a friend hold a yardstick and pretend to be your hedge. Ask her to raise the yardstick until her height plus the yardstick's length hide the scene that you want to screen. If a six-foot-tall shrub is enough to hide the neighbor's compost pile, you can begin your plant search with that size in mind. If you're trying to blot out a bright yellow play structure, you will probably have to choose taller shrubs or trees, and the yardstick trick will help you figure out just how high is enough."

"Many of the needle evergreens including yew, arborvitae, hemlock, and incense cedar make fine hedges. Garden designer Elizabeth Marantz, whose large Portland garden is divided into several spaces, favors Hick's yew (Taxus media 'Hicksii') for its handsome, fine-textured, evergreen foliage. The red yew berries are also decorative until the robins eat them (seeds are poisonous to humans)."

"Low maintenance is another advantage because Hick's yew is relatively slow-growing you only have to prune it once in late summer. Marantz prefers long-handled Japanese hedge shears which let you stand back from your work and clip away. In spring the new growth is chartreuse, and to emphasize that she grows chartreuse-flowering cushion spurge (Euphorbia epithymoides) , swamp spurge (Euphorbia palustris), Corsican hellebore (Helleborus argutifolius) and bearsfoot hellebore (Helleborus foetidus) nearby. It took about four years for the 2-gallon starter plants to develop into a chest-high hedge. In the past visitors would wander down her hillside beckoned by a view of Mount Hood; now the hedge screens the alluring meadow and guides them to the front door. For a bigger hedge where you might need a ten-to-fifteen-foot tall screen, Marantz likes Portuguese laurel (Prunus lusitanica), a broadleaved evergreen with serrated leaves in a rich shade of dark green. Left alone it will form a multitrunked spreading tree; clipped it shapes up nicely into a hedge. It grows more slowly than English laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) and has darker leaves that recede modestly into the distance compared to English laurel's shiny yellow-green foliage that jumps out visually."

"Seattle-based landscape architect Terry Welch transformed columnar junipers (Juniperus communis 'Stricta') into a slender, four-foot-tall,
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