Haha - I should have known better. They don't survive a freeze at all if left naked outdoors. The vast majority in north Florida, they are in pots. They have to be covered or brought in. No trees here except the ones covered or pots brought in or put in a greenhouse. I used to have mine pot-in-pot plunged in the ground, but it became too much work to pull them at the last minute. Now they are in large clay pots. Some people lift them completely and stack them horizontally in their garage or basement. I even read about one person who bagged the rootballs and stuffed them in her hall closet! Ooops - to answer your question - I let mine get to about 6' tall and then I usually cut them back, just to make them manageable. That happens over about 2-3 years. Sultry_Jasmine_Nights, who lives just north of Jacksonville and has a greenhouse, may have some taller than that. Carol This post was edited by love_the_yard on Tue, Mar 4, 14 at 21:11

Thank you for your input, Imich! I was aware of the possibility of Adverse Possession, since I had been maintaining that piece of land for 17 years, and both prior owners of the property assumed it was my land, too. And I put a lot of plants over there, and she ended up with all the mature ones :( But I don't want to be a pain in the rear. And what done is done. In hindsight, I guess I would have asked her to allow me some of the land at the rear of the property and in return I would allow her the same amount at the front of the property----just to avoid the diagonal effect!!! My main concern now is using my property from the fence line over to the fullest, and I am certain she is going to tell me that I can't place certain things near her fence. So I want to remain within legal limits, BUT place things where I wish upon my own property.......but I will give her that foot that is technically mine. A concern I have right now.....I have a very large scrub pine that regularly loses large branches during storm. I am liable for fence damage from this tree, yes? Even though it existed for many years before the fence existed? In other news, not all my potted plants that were to go in front of the fence survived the winter.....I lost several ninebarks and an ornamental grass, and a few perennials; so I have less to work with. I did install three small rhodies from my pot ghetto in the shady area in front of the fence, and we planted our serbian spruce Christmas tree in a sunnier area in front of the fence. I gave the serbian spruce plenty of clearance from the fence. Teresa

In case you didn't get it clearly from previous posts, you need both male and female plants to get berries on the girls (like with most hollies). I am quite a bit more fond of the male flowers than I am of the female's berries (larger and showier than female flower clusters) so I just grow males. It does need an acidic soil, preferably enriched with some organic matter, and a good bit of shade - too much sun will bleach out the foliage and make the plant excessively prone to mites. Many folks in my area inherit gardens with skimmias sited incorrectly and are amazed when they discover the anemic looking, pale yellow-green, stippled foliage should be a rich, deep and shiny green! BTW, Reeve's skimmia, Skimmia reevesiana, is a self-fertile species that doesn't require both male and female plants for berry production.

We can only see a very narrow part of the space from your photo, so it is difficult to be sure what might work. How big is the gap you are trying to cover up? Would you want taller plants during the growing season along with the lower plants to cover the gap? Would a row or two of cobblestones or landscape timbers be enough to cover the gap, such as Mad_gallica suggested? Can you set this up so that one panel is hinged and moveable for access under the deck, allowing you to plant in front of the rest of the panels in the ground? Or will that count against you as disturbance? If you plant native wetland plants that will help filter runoff is that an issue? Can you plant things in the ground that will recover fine from being cut to the ground for inspection? How often are the inspections? For instance, spirea and Hydrangea arborescens such as 'Annabelle' can be cut to the ground and will recover within a few weeks. Neither of these are evergreen, but if that type of planting is an option, I will consider other possibilities. If you are wedded to the idea of these planters, you might try a series of very hardy evergreen perennials and shrubs this year, and let the results next spring tell you what to plant for the final planting based on what survived. You can think about buying better insulated planters, either larger ones and lining them with a couple of layers of small bubble wrap internally and then mulching the soil surface well in autumn, or extruded foam planters, which I have seen at my local big box store. Because the foam holds air, it is light weight and provides insulation, and they resemble pottery. I find clusters of pots more interesting than only a straight line, so can you add some groupings of pots in front of these planters to break up the line? I can't see enough of the area to judge, and those groupings could have some annuals for a longer flowering period. Check out Geranium Biokovo Geranium macrorrhizum Iberis sempervirens/perennial candytuft Vaccinium vitis-idaea/Ligonberry AKA mountain cranberry Dianthus plumarius or D. gratianopolitanus/Cottage pinks Sedum 'Angelina' variegated thyme Veronica 'Georgia Blue' groundcover Junipers such as Blue Star All of these survive for me in the ground, including some that are in exposed settings that freeze pretty deeply. I can't help you with info on soil mixes. I just use a mix of regular good quality potting soil and coarse compost in my containers. Or there is always Sam_MD's solution of reasonably realistic plastic shrub for the winter and flowering annuals for the summer.