First of all, what is the exposure where you intend to plant your hedge, sun, part sun/shade, or shade? I know you say they will be out in the open, but are their a lot of trees surrounding your yard that would create at least a filtered sunlight situation? Or, none at all, so that they will be exposed to full sun?

Secondly, do you intend to prepare and amend your soil?

One of the first shrubs that came to my mind is some of the Barberries. They do have thorns and you would have to contend with them when pruning. There are a lot of exciting new colors on the market. They are drought tolerant - once established, and I have some planted along the side of my house as kind of a "built in" safety feature due to their thorniness.

The "twig" dogwoods are very nice hedge material, either the Red Twig or Yellow Twig. They get 6-8' tall with similar spread, and can take sun or part shade. They flower in spring and in the winter, after the foliage is gone, they have beautiful red or yellow (whichever kind you get) stems providing winter interest.

Rose of Sharon - lots of new colors and double flowers on the market now. Pretty fast growers, I just don't like the flower debris they leave on the ground.

If you have a part to full shade location, Hydrangea quercifolia 'Snow Queen' or Oakleaf Hydrangeas are gorgeous in flower, out of flower, and in winter. Don't require as much care as other hydrangea species like the Mophead hydrangeas, for instance.

For part shade or sun, Ninebark (Physocarpa) is a lovely shrub that can be used as a hedge or in mass plantings. They flower in summer and are attractive to butterflies. Choose varieties that are heat tolerant because some are for more Northern zones. They come in a variety of foliage colors and grow relatively fast.

Some of my favorite shrubs are the Sumacs - not to be confused with poison sumac. Rhus aromatica - fragrant sumac - is a nice shrub with red fall foliage, and Rhus typhina (the Tiger Eye sumacs) have great color year round. Just two plants will give you an ultimate spread of about 15 feet.

Viburnum nudum cultivars 'Brandywine' and 'Winterthur' have an ultimate height of 6', but they are lovely shrubs, flowering in early summer, and they have a nice reddish purple winter color as well. Some Viburnums are larger and some smaller, so watch the labels for height. Planting two different cultivars will increase the flowering and fruiting, too.

I'm going to mention one small tree that you may find interesting. It is Vitex agnus-castus, or Chaste Tree. As trees go, it is small, but it can also be grown in shrub form by allowing it to send up shoots from the base and not pruning them back. The flowers grow all summer long, and the twisting, angular branches are very interesting in winter. It is deciduous, losing its foliage during late fall. Butterflies and hummingbirds just adore the blooms, and on most, the blooms are a blue to purple color. There is a pink flowering variety and a white as well. You can easily find them at Lowe's or Home Depot. It is drought tolerant once established, probably by its 2nd or 3rd year. It will grow in part shade to sunny locations.

There may be more I can suggest if I know more about what you're looking for. Hope this helps give you some ideas to check out on the Internet.

I have allergies, too, but I'm not sure that what I have mentioned will cause you to have an allergic reaction. Most allergies are caused by grasses, trees (Elm and Cedar), ragweed in fall, and mold anytime following lots of moisture (humidity like last year) and rain.

Susan

My first thoughts were of evergreens: yews, junipers, arborvitaes. Personally, if I needed a hedge, I would make a mixed hedge full of things for birds and wildlife, with small trees and evergreens and flowering shrubs.

Thank you for the replies! I did forget to mention the exposure. It would be full sun all day for the full length of the hedge, which can get a bit brutal during the summer here. That's why I'm hoping for something that's drought and heat tolerant. I'm hoping not to do too much soil amending before planting, though I will mix in some compost to loosen up the clay a bit.

At first I was only looking at evergreen shrubs, but then someone on another site got me thinking about using blueberries instead and I concluded that a dense deciduous shrub with a lot of branches would probably work fine for the winter. I already have one berkeley blueberry bush that seems to be tolerating our soil here, though I worry that they won't get as tall as I'd need for privacy. They would also require a lot more work with the soil to get it to the optimal pH.

I'll do some research on the other shrubs you mentioned to see what they look like and how much they'd cost. Thanks so much for the suggestions!

Berkely seems to be the most tolerant of my blueberries. it also is the prettiest all time of the year and keeps its leaves well into the cold weather. However, I would not recommend it for any privacy edgr because I think they will start to die out once they reach the desired hight no matter how well cared for they are.

There is a holly that has a name Nelly Stephens I think that was always recommended for this, but it is hard to find anymore.

Definitely do a variety of plants. If you plant a whole row of one, and it starts getting a problem, you could loose your whole hedge. Plant a variety! It would also look prettier than all the same ole, same ole.

Moni

I like the chaste trees a lot since I've started looking at them today. I've also found some info on Nishiki dappled willows, but I wonder how they'd do here in the mid-late summer (or how much watering they would need). A mixed hedge of those two would probably look very nice, even if they're not evergreen.

My concerns with willow are that many, including this particular willow, is the lack of heat tolerance and demand for water.

The Japanese willows are just not very heat tolerant, and prefer the cooler temps of the North. Also, they are not drought tolerant at all. They really need a consistently moist soil and they will be very demanding here in Oklahoma. Willows and water go hand in hand. The roots grow deep into the soil and are well known for seeking out water and sewer lines. That can spell disaster to an unsuspecting home owner, unless planted far, far away from these sources.

It would be better to choose shrubs that have similar culture requirements, for light exposure, water and soil preferences, and heat tolerance. While the Chaste tree can handle all of these requirements as far as light, drought tolerance, soil, and heat - once established - the is much more fussy as far as water and heat tolerance. There are some willows that tolerate our hot climate, but I don't know of any small ones offhand.

Blueberries have such narrow, strict soil requirements for growth (acid) that it would be difficult to grow them with anything else, and growing them as a hedge may be less than ideal for them.

Some of the golden leaf Barberries would look very nice with a Chaste shrub, or any shrub or dwarf tree with brighter, contrasting foliage color. There are a lot of golden color shrubs on the market. Something that flowers in the spring and has good fall foliage color, so that it won't be competing with the Chaste tree for attention.

Susan

Susan

My favorite shrubs for hedges are the hollies. There are many of them available and some get quite tall while others remain more compact. Their tiny flowers (so small you hardly notice them) are amazingly fragrant, and the birds love the berries, although they generally don't eat the berries until later in winter.

Hollies are amazingly heat-tolerant, drought-tolerant and wind-tolerant once established. Dwarf Burford holly makes a really nice privacy screen along a fence line with the proper spacing, particularly if you let them reach their natural pyramidal shape and don't prune them. The use of the word "dwarf" is deceptive because they are dwarf only in comparison to regular Burford holly which is a huge monster. The dwarf Burford hollies we planted about 10 years ago are about 10 feet tall and each plant's spread covers 6' to 8' feet in width. We spaced them pretty far apart so they could reach their mature size without crowding one another. Another lovely shrub that is underused is Abelia. These are semi-evergreen, small-leaved shrubs that flower in spring. Their growth is quite dense and they are very drought-tolerant once established.

I have a chaste tree in the backyard butterfly garden and the wildlife love it, and so do I, but it is deciduous and won't provide much privacy in winter.

I've linked the website of Sooner Plant Farm for you because their website is amazingly informative. It has detailed into on many of the types of plants mentioned here, and photos for many of them, as well as many, many others. After you spend a little while looking at all the plants on their website, you'll have all kinds of ideas about what you could plant for a privacy screen.

I second the idea that a mixed hedgerow is healthier because one disease can wipe out a monoculture of one plant variety. Also, diversity attracts more wildlife like birds and butterflies, for example.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Sooner Plant Farm

Yeah, that was kind of what I was afraid of with the willow. Oklahoma summers are not very forgiving for plants that don't like heat. Are there larger varieties of barberry out there? All the golden ones I clicked on at the Sooner Plant Farm website are fairly small (3-4' at mature height).

I'm a bit leery of planting holly because my experience with them is that they grow fairly slowly. The pictures I saw of the burford holly foliage look very similar to some hollies we have in our foundation beds, and they've only grown about 18 inches in the last five years despite having lots of water and good soil. It's possible that it's a different, more compact variety, I suppose.

So I think I will definitely buy at least a few of the bluish-purple-flowering chaste trees. In lieu of going with the variegated privets or dappled willows, I like the red twig dogwoods (which do come in a light variegated version...I don't know why I'm hung up on variegated shrubs but I am, ha!). Mixing in some forsythias or some other spring-blooming deciduous shrub would be a good idea, too. We don't spend a great deal of time outside during the winter, so it's not imperative that it be an evergreen shrub.

I would just like to be able to work in the yard or in our garden without having my creepy neighbor watching me the whole time. The sooner these shrubs can block his view, the better!

I do have a question about the dogwoods, though. Are the shrubs susceptible to dogwood anthracnose? I have one small dogwood tree already, and I'm a little bit worried about losing them all at once if one gets sick.

Have you thought about grasses? I have a large ornamental grass that I think is a miscanthus. It grows tall enough that it would make a pretty nice privacy hedge. You could plant in between them to give it diversity.

I cut down the foliage in the spring, but it grows back pretty quickly.

Lisa

Here is a link that might be useful: Ornamental Grasses

Oh, nevermind about the barberry question. I just found some info on evergreen barberries that can get about 10' tall. The thorns scare me a bit, but I'll definitely check them out.

Grasses are certainly an option, too. Thanks for the link!

If you are in an area without deer some of the large euonymous grow quickly and produce a dense evergreen hedge. But if the deer can get to them they love to eat them in winter. I like the idea of mixing in deciduous shrubs. I have a hedge of forsythia, spirea, kerria, mockorange, beutyberry and rose of sharon. And deer-eaten euonymous, which was meant to provide winter color.

What about wax myrtle?

http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=MOCE2

Native, provides great food for yellow rumped warblers in the winter, evergreen, etc.

I think I have my hedge planned out! It'll be 80' long and a mix of:

2 southern wax myrtles - side-by-side in the center to provide a year-round screen of our back porch area from the neighbor. They're also the largest shrubs of the bunch from what I've gathered so far, so it makes sense to put them in the middle.

Then on either side of the wax myrtles I'll use a mix of forsythia, red twig dogwood, and chaste trees. Hopefully with that combination there will always be something interesting to look at. They all grow pretty fast, too!

Thanks so much for all the advice!

Sounds great! I have a Kumson Forsythia that is variegated. Actually, from a distance it appears solid green, though, but I love it. Forsythia viridissima var. koreana's foliage is green with a net-like overlay of white veins. It is beautiful IMO.

Mulberryknob - your hedge sounds so pretty! I wish I had enough room to have a hedge. How does the Beauty Bush do for you? Are we talking about Kolkwitzia? I'm considering this one, too.

Dawn, I thought of Abelia first, but didn't think they would get large enough for what the OP wanted. This is a shrub I've been wanting for so long to add to my butterfly garden. Everyone that has them loves them. Of course, I want to add a butterfly bush, New Jersey Tea shrub, Mock Orange, Chaste tree, etc. So far, my shrubs in the front yard consist of Texas Star hibiscus (I consider it shrub-like), Fantasia Hibiscus, False Indigo, and Button Bush. I can definitely add 2 or 3 more and I always grow some Sunflowers out there, too, and leave them up over winter for the birds.

Susan

Miraje, Hollies can be slow growers or fast growers and it depends on your soil and on which varieties you choose. The ones you describe probably are a dwarf variety. There are hundreds of named holly cultivars and they come in all sizes.

I have southern wax myrtles here in zone 7b and I love them, but mine often suffer freeze damage during cold weather....maybe not every winter, but about every other winter. They rebound nicely from the freeze damage, but if you aren't willing to put up with the freeze damage, I would choose something else. Mine are about 8 years old, so they're quite large and quite well-established, but they still suffer freeze damage. They don't die, but you get some dead limbs and lots of brown cold-scorched leaves.

Susan, I would use abelias in front of taller trees or shrubs if I wanted a really tall privacy hedge, but there are some abelias that get 6' tall. I like them because of their density.

I get similar freeze damage on my photinias about every other year, and it doesn't seem to bother them much. They always grow a flush of new foliage in the spring and then look like nothing ever happened to them. As long as the cold doesn't kill them or stunt their growth I don't mind putting up with the frostbite look for a month or two in the winter.

I will give hollies credit for being tolerant of any weather. It could be -10 or 110, and ours look as happy as can be.