Beautiful setting, and great play set. You have a wonderful yard to work with.

I'd like to help, but I am very confused! Where's the picket fence? Is the "nuisance area" behind the trees in the 2nd (and 3rd) photo, or is it actually right next to the play set?

If you want an attractive screen that will blend in with your lovely natural setting, I'd go for a mixed planting of deciduous trees, flowering shrubs, and smaller evergreens. For specific plant suggestions, it would help a lot to know how much sun this area gets and what height would provide the screening you need without blocking too much air and light from your garden.

Also, a fence will not do a very good job blocking the view from a house that's uphill from you. It might also look a little out of place in your woodsy setting. You might want to consider a mixed planting that wraps around from the right and across the back; using mostly the same selection of plants all the way around will give you a really unified look; you can then do different foreground plantings in different areas; the backdrop plants will provide continuity and really work out well.

Please give us just a little clarification; my own yard is a disaster right now, so it would be a lot of fun to think and talk about someone else's beautiful yard instead of my own.

Oops. I posted the same picture twice. LOL Thanks so much for the compliments. I am so overwhelmed with the open expanse of lawn that I have a hard time seeing it as beautiful sometimes. We had no idea the builder was going to clear every tree off our lot!
Here is the picket fence one.

Thanks for the additional info. Wow, that DOES look like it's close to the border. If your neighbor will really allow you to plant there, there are LOTS of things you could use, especially in full sun. If you need to keep the planting narrow, there are still some tall plants that will provide privacy without taking up too much room, but you'll get more out of evergreens in that situation. Actually a fence might be appropriate there, if space is a big issue, to screen the view of the play set from the neighbor, but that's only if he wants the screening enough to warrant the expense.

If you're going with a mixed shrub border, how much patience do you have for things that don't grow very quickly? If the answer is not a lot, you might want to consider Forsythia, American Cranberry Viburnum, Kousa Dogwood, Sambucus (Elderberry), Weigela, or Annabelle Hydrangea. If Winter Honeysuckle isn't invasive in your zone, it might be a good bet. The Viburnum is a target of the Viburnum Leaf beetle, you'd want to check with your extension service to see if that;s a problem in your area; we don't have it here and as far as I know it hasn't been reported in NH.

These deciduous plants all grow quite fast and are all comparatively inexpensive; you can start with small plants and, if you water them well, you should have a good screen fairly quickly (although, I don't mean by the 4th of July).

For evergreens, several regulars here swear by Thuja 'Green Giant', I don't have any experience with it but maybe someone else will weigh in. I've had great luck with naturally-grown (unclipped) yews, where I needed a narrow evergreen screen. I'd suggest mixing in a few evergreens with the deciduous shrubs.

If you have more patience, there are practically unlimited choices. My favorites include blueberry, sparkleberry (deciduous) holly, hydrangea Tardiva (a tall one), witch hazel (blooms in February), Viburnum bodnantense (dawn viburnum), V. carlesii (Koreanspice viburnum). Oakleaf hydrangea might be good too, it's fairly quick growing.

Since I'm a zone or 2 warmer than you, I hope you'll get lots of ideas from more northerly members.

Now, about the fence; you're much better off using just trees and shrubs. Fences are not cheap, and they have the nasty habit of getting old, requiring maintenance, and eventually falling down anyway. Take that money to the nursery! Plants just get better as they get older, and they will keep paying you back for the care you lavished on them when they were young.

Here's one last big piece of advice. Get some graph paper, and roughly map out your yard. A map of the area in question, showing the lot line, the play set, the line of trees, and the views (the one to be screened and the one of your new garden from the deck) is the bare minimum. Make some copies at te library or at Staples. Get the dimensions of the area to be planted fixed in your mind. Beg, borrow or steal some books about shrubs - I like the small Taylors Guide to Shrubs, but there are many great ones. Look through the books, get a list of plants you like, when they bloom, how hardy they are, and most important, their ultimate dimensions. Any info that's missing in your books can be found on the web.

Take your list to as many local nurseries as you can, but leave your credit card at home. Take some notes on what's available, including the specific varieties and the prices. Use the web to check on these varieties, and sketch them out on copies of your map. Think about season of bloom, foliage colors, interesting forms (some trees are wonderful without their leaves, and you'd want to see their forms from the house in winter, so they need to be placed carefully, not tucked behind a forsythia).

You will end up with a plant list, sources, and a budget, the main ingredients of a plan. The next thing you'll need, aside from the credit card, is a rototiller, some compost and mulch, and a soaker hose, but that will be on another thread.

Hope you'll keep us posted, this looks like a really great project.

What a fun project! I am attempting to attach a link to an article from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on Songbird Hedges -- as an antidote to the fencing of suburbia -- and the great decrease in songbird populations nationwide. Also, I'd like to recommend a book called Planting Noah's Garden (there's a part 1 -- might be called Noah's Garden) by Sarah Stein -- about using mixed hedges along property lines to improve wildlife conditions. Great suggestions in both! Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: songbird hedge

Drive around and look at different property line plantings to get an idea of what you like. A hedge of all one kind of plant tends to look a bit more formal, expecially if trimmed. My personal preference is for a mix of several kinds so there is a variety of textures and flowering times to increase interest, but it may not be yours.

If you want flowers, you'll get some bees, but unless the girls are actually playing in the shrubs while they are blooming, it shouldn't be a problem. I'd guess that they are old enough to remember to stay out of the shrubs while they are blooming.

Diggingthedirt has made some nice suggestions. Hydrangeas, especially H. paniculatas like Tardiva, Pinky Winky, Limelight, Pink Diamond, etc, or H. arborescens, like Annabelle, are pretty trouble free and they bloom for long periods. Kousa dogwoods are just starting to bloom here now. I've got 2 that I got cheaply at a big box store three years ago. I wasn't sure if they'd be hardy, so didn't want to spend too much on them, but they have done well and have bloomed for two years now. They are about 10 feet tall, and were maybe 5 or 6 feet when I got them. Forsythia is nice for the early color, but also because the branches if untrimmed grow up and arch down, and can be trimmed from below if needed to make a nice play space underneath for the kids. Blueberries have bright red fall color, white spring flowers, and the kids can compete with the birds to get the berries unless you put nets over the shrubs. I love many of the Viburnums, but until I know whether or not they will go the way of chestnuts and elms, I'm not spending any money on them. I'm hoping that the viburnum beetle gets under control before it gets to NH because the genus provides an nice range of shrubs, many offering nice flowers (some with scent), berries, and fall color. There are native and imported varieties. If you have deer, I'd not suggest yews; they are the one plant that regularly got completely denuded, nibbled down to stubs at my previous house. Needless to say, I haven't planted any where I live now.

Some of the hardy deciduous azaleas or rhododendrons, like the Lights series ('Northern Highlights', 'Rosy Lights', 'Golden Lights', etc.) have lovely, scented flowers, colorful fall foliage, and will look nice against your neighbor's trees. Between the wind and the sun, you probably don't want evergreen rhodies, though I love them and have a number along my woods edges. The one exception might be some of the PJM series, which are rock hardy and don't seem to mind winter sun. They have reddish to olive colored winter foliage that greens up again in the spring. There are also some summer blooming deciduous rhodies - if you want info on them, I'll look some up and add them - just let me know.

One of my favorite native small trees, also a dogwood, is Pagoda dogwood (Cornus alternifolia). It's blooming now, but doesn't have typical dogwood flowers. There are creamy clusters which turn into berries that eventually are almost black on bright red stems which the birds love. Fall color is nice also, mostly pastel shades. Farther south it needs some shade, but it does fine in full sun to full shade in NH.

If you have some areas of wetter soil (anywhere from average to soggy) a native deciduous holly, winterberry holly (Ilex verticillata) is nice. It's a plain green in the summer with nonprickly leaves that drop in the fall, but has stunning red berries that last until the birds eat them either in the late autumn or early spring. You may have noticed them growing wild in wet areas. You'd need one male plant (unless you have wild ones nearby) for every 6 or so female plants - the females won't fruit without a male, but I've found I have male plants growing in a nearby wetland, so I didn't have to buy a male.

Magnolias don't grow fast, but if you choose a variety with later flowers (to escape late frost damage) they can be pretty stunning small to medium trees. They grow slowly, so wouldn't be really tree sized for a number of years.

If you check frequently, especially early in the season when the care (or lack of care) won't have influenced plant health, you may find some of these at Home Depot or other big box stores to help stretch your budget, or you can get small starter plants at Bluestone Perennials (http://www.bluestoneperennials.com). (I think they may have some of them on sale now for something like $5 each, but they are tiny!) If you want a whole hedge of something, a nursery that sells liners ( basically rooted cuttings) by the flat is Western Maine Nurseries. They do have a minimum order, I think 2 flats (the two flats don't have to both be the same kind of plant) or $100, but if you are doing a long hedge on a small budget that may work out for you in the long run. They would need good soil prep and mulch along with regular watering for the first year, but I've had good success with their plants.

Here is a link that might be useful: Western Maine Nurseries

Wow, thanks guys for the suggestions and links. Sorry I haven't been able to check in before now. I measured and the left corner of the play area is about 8 or 9 ft from the property line and the right side is over 20 feet. I would love to do a layered hedge there but would have to do so carefully.

Yes, my girls know enough to stay out of the hedge if there are bees there I just don't want to tempt fate. I'd love to encourage some songbirds or pretty wildlife just not bees in this area.

I will print out your suggestions and begin my research. I will be sure to keep you posted on how this pans out. It may take some time but I think I have a good picture on how to approach this now.

In the bigger picture,I also have realized that I really want to work on closing in the lot a bit. We are so open that there is nothing cozy about my yard. As I look at other yards that I drive by I see how trees and natural, deciduous plants can create privacy very well.

Thank you all so much for the great advice.
Chris

You've got the vision. It just takes time for a garden to grow into your vision.Or maybe the vision grows into garden. Probably both ways.....