I like Nastarana's idea of the walk. Makes it obvious what side is theirs and just what they need to maintain up too. I am redoing an area and have a similar issue, I am going to leave that 12" and then level my side with a low stack block wall. I have a section that is wider than the 12" behind one of our fenced gardens. I can maintain my side no problem and have gates. I do have a question for those in the know, if your neighbor has left themselves NO access other than trespassing across all of your property to maintain their fence, do you have to allow or should they purchase their own ladder? The bad neighbors will have their fence fall any old time, surprised it is still standing to be honest, and we have our own chainlink fence on our side. But the over watering towntown group has left themselves no way to access except thru our side I have lots of things planted on our side of the line, most by 2 or more feet so there is work room, just no way to reach it. That fence will probably be the first to fall because of the winds even though it is in better shape. (but only by a little bit) And is there anything that can be done if they leave the old concrete around where their fence was before? They built one guessing on the wrong line and rebuilt a new one more on their side but I have trip hazards all over on our side of the fence but I think mostly on their side of the property line.

Congratulations! 'New Dawn' looks lovely. I don't have that one. I hope it performs well for you. I'm a tad envious - I can't grow camellias up here. Maybe you could grow the 'New Dawn' on a pillar so it blooms above your evergreen hedge. . . . Laurel

Answering the question of what to put in place of the trees, I'd recommend sod in order to heal the scarred lawn. The area is too close to the drive and street for shrub obstructions and there are already street trees nearby. If you are trying to hide some of the property across the street, then place a dome shaped shrub about 15'-20' from the street and 10'-12' from the drive. (Placing it too close to street or drive will be a disadvantage in one way or another.) The acceptable shapes to prune it to are dome or tapered cylinder. (If you prune to a ball, you'll ultimately be creating a mushroom shape tree form where the stem would be short stilts.) It could have a square footprint if you prefer. I'm not saying that placing a shrub there is ideal regardless of other circumstances. It's ideal if it solves your problem. If you don't need it, stick with sod only. I would be limbing up the street trees a little for cleaner appearance and so it's not a bigger job later. Examples of dome shaped shrubs, circled in red, especially at the background. It could be evergreen but doesn't seem that it must be, which would open up the the options in shrub selection.

Thanks everyone! The pots spend the winter on my south facing back wall and that's always the warmest spot in the yard. I'm sure that's why this one put a bud on. Hallo, I have many different sizes but I've found the bigger the better. Eventually they all get root bound and you have to take them out and root prune them and replenish the soil. With the bigger pots that happens less often. Those brown and gray ones on the right side are about 30 inches across and nearly 3 ft. tall. They're BIG! But then you can see I have some in very small pots. Those are mostly newer minis and will have to go into bigger pots or the ground this year.