Rick, what's your planting zone? How much sun would the trees get if they were planted next to the fence (i.e. What direction is the fence on)? How much space are you willing to allow for the hedge? You mention the houses being close, so just wondering how much room you have for trees. If you have the space for Leyland's, I would highly recommend you consider Thuja 'Green Giant' instead. They are much healthier, fuller, and extremely fast growing like Leyland. I ignored the advice on these forums and planted 5 leylands a couple years ago.. at the same time I also planted 2 green giants. Both have grown very fast, but the leyland's look terrible. I will be replacing with more gg's this fall. If the fence is blocking an eye sore like messy neighbors, it will certainly be a selling feature for the house in the future... probably won't add a ton of value, but likely a nice selling point. As far as noise... don't expect even the densest hedge to do much there, it won't. For that you might consider adding a nice water feature to your yard. Sound of running water is nice and will really help drown out the neighbors. Good Luck!

I have a chainlink too. It is what it is. I agree with NWrose, while I don't love the fence, I love what I've planted in front of it, so I "have better things to see!" A couple of folks in my neighborhood have the green colored chainlink, definately an improvement but I don't know about painting the fence, that might work or it might be a maintenance issue. Here's some plants that I have in front of my fence that I really enjoy: Shasta dasies Fireglow japanese maple (there are so many goregous small japanese maples to choose from, like "Full Moon" and "Autumn Moon" which both need shade to do well. Not big acid fans though). Another gorgeous maple that I would have planted if I had shade is striped maple, sometimes called mosewood maple or mountain maple, Acer pennsylvanicum. Blueberries (love acid soil) Gold flame spirea or something like that Miss Kim lilac (not a fan of acid soil though) Rose (I planted a wild rose, Rosa viginiana, but if I had to do it again I'd do a repeat bloomer) Many folks in my neighborhood have roses against chainlink, they look great, also I like them mixed with conifers. They don't like acid soil though, but own rootstock shrub roses are remarkably hardy. Mint Raspberries Ironwood, Carpinus carolinia Peonies Ostrich fern Sweetfern, (not really a fern, this can survive acid soil if it's well drained) Dwarf weeping hemlock (acid loving) Mountain laurel (cousin of rhodies, loves shade) Clethera is another acid soil tolerant nice shrub. One other small tree that is on my list to buy is Sweetbay magnolia. This is rather hard to come by but I have a lovely native plant nursery that I frequent. That reminds me, there are tons of lovely viburnums you could plant, and also Fothergilla. I've also heard of a dogwood that likes shade, Pagoda dogwood, Cornus alternifolia. It tolerates acid soil. But it is an eastern species and I don't know if it grows well in the PNW. Many plants, while not overly thriving on acid soil, will tolerate it and do reasonably well. I found that out when I lived once on the edge of a pine plantation.

In my opinion one of the best ways to preserve a treated pine fence (especially posts that are buried) is with sump oil. Or you can use linseed oil. The people on one side of me did not want me to soak their posts in sump oil in order for it to soak into the timber. In fact they called me a nutcase for sugesting it would extend the life of them. For the record the posts are (hardwood) Australian redgum. Pailings are 13mm teated pine and the rails are 50x75mm treated pine. On the other side, where i have native bushland I did soak the base of the post in sump oil for just over 48 hours before putting them in the ground. I then sprayed the fence with sump oil. The untreated (much more wind protected) fence ended up with 4 posts snapped off at groung level they were rotten. There were pailings blown off etc etc. The fence on the other side off my home (which copped the FULL force of the wind is still nice and straight and still in good order. I still can't even wobble ANY post one bit. Both fences were put up together 17 years ago when we built. Another thing sump oil does is prevent termite attack. (If the buried part is soaked for 24-48 hrs before cementing them in). don't think that "treated" pine, or any other 'treated' timber will stop termites the chemicals leach out over time. Now the people next door want me to pay 1/2 for a new fence. I took them over showed them the other fence that was oiled and asked can you see any problem here. The grass is growing, as are all the plants there is no issues there. It's not as if i just poored oil all around the posts so the impact on the enviroment is infenticimal if at all. very little (if any) oil leaches out if they are soaked) the timber holds the oil inside it. If you don't want sump oil on your pailings then liseed oil is the next best thing. It is moisture that rots the timber(creates the enviroment for rottting) oils will repel the water keeping the as dry as posible and thus extending the life. And preventing yet more trees from being chopped down to cut into posts, rails and pailings. In fairness I said to those people next door if you buy all the materials I will help you put it up. But I am not paying 1/2 the cost for a fencing contractor to build another fence simply because you refused to take WELL KNOWN advice and called me a nut case in the process. Why should I fork out $2,864.00 (that's my half) simply because you chose not to listen to good old fashioned and well known advice. When I asked if he was prepared to pay half for the damage to my new garden bed, plants, shrubs and some other things I had stored where the fence fell on it all and brokes new shrubs etc he said "oh that's not my fault" "Can't you claim it on your insurance?" When asked why he isn't claiming his fence repairs on his insurance he said "Oh I don't have insurance". I said what happens if your house burns down how can you afford to pay the mortgage as well as the cost of living elsewhere. "Oh it won't burn down" was the answer I got. GO FIGURE.

Guess I can add my voice here.....I've enjoyed the swaps that I have participated in on this forum. I've hosted and swapped both - now I just need to put my pedal to the metal and get those blocks made into quilts! It is possible for some of us to get burned out doing swaps, so for now, I'm not joining any block exchanges until I get some UFOs made. I would caution against having too many swaps going at the same time as it can get confusing. And that's all I'll say about that. I enjoy swapping with the quilters I know here, but then, I've swapped with strangers also and that was fine. But it is more personal when you know who made your blocks. I don't have time to go visiting a lot of forums and I feel I have a lot of myself invested in this forum...so I stay here. Teresa