You also might want to check to see if burning bush is invasive near you. It is around here, escaping into the woods and wild areas. I also don't think of it as a good screen, and it's not a particularly attractive shrub most of the year - just green and twiggy, only turning pinky-red in the fall. Diablo is a dark red to greenish-red, depending on time of year and amount of sun. It also has flowers and attractively shaped leaves. To my mind, a much nicer plant. Also, check out 'Coppertina' ninebark. For screening, the shrub form would be more useful. In general, grafted standards, which have a trunk with a shrubby or weeping plant grafted on top, are intended as single specimens. They usually need more attention with pruning of sprouts from the lower portion and for shaping of the upper portion. I also can't see why anyone would want to graft either of these plants, and would check out your source on the Garden Watchdog to see if they are really a reliable company. They have feedback from many, many gardeners on different companies. A final thought - my preference is for a mixed hedge of several different varieties so that there is a variety of foliage texture and color, bloom time, and bird habitat. I have a long hedge I put in last year for screening with three kinds of evergreen, some small dogwoods, hydrangeas, deciduous hollies, and rhododendrons as well as a few vines and large herbaceous plants. It has several plants of most of the varieties and has been decorative all year (except when it was completely covered by snow for several months this winter.) ;>) Here is a link that might be useful: The Garden Watchdog

thanks joe. can u also give me some advice on native plants that would grow well in this plant community? we'd like to add some more natives to the landscape. we've slowly been removing the ivy that previously covered the area, so we'd like to replace with some sort of tall grasses or groundcover that grows well in shade. for reference the existing plants in our community are coast live oaks, coffeeberry, willows, poison oak, blackberry, etc. thanks i appreciate your help! -a

I'm too far north to imagine what the banana might look like, but I bet it would be nice. And the fan palm would be lovely. Chaste tree, Vitex angus-castus, is a pretty southern substitute for lilac, with grey-green leaves and beautiful blue flowers. Desert willow seems like it would be nice, too -- not sure how tall they get. Fothergilla is beautiful in bloom; you could prune it to a single stem I think. Sterile Rose of Sharon, trimmed to tree-form would be an unusual, tropical looking plant. (I did this with regular ROS and while I loved the look, the seedlings were killer!) Hope you find something that works for you -- looks like a lovely space!

In book "Wild Flowers of Florida", I found an explanation for the difference(s) between my tree and photos /descriptions of B. halimfolia. On individual trees, all flowers are either male or female. Author wrote of male flowers that they are "much less noticeable". Perhaps foliage density tends to follow suit. I am prompted by that reading to correct the above-stated "Deciduous" to evergreen. (Leaves did leave; now I recall that I pruned the branches.)