You might spend some time this summer looking at different bushes and shrubs to get ideas. Read labels, look at plantings you like, see if you can tell what plants are. Perhaps smaller, upright style bushes would mix for better hedge than some of the larger ones. Smaller to medium sizes, with a larger plant or small tree on corners for anchor, could be attractive. Fruit or dwarf corner trees flower and could provide snacks during summer! I look at lilacs, forsythia, larger bushes as more a windbreak, good sized hedge. They need some attention to shape well, get good flowering. Kind of too big for my vegtables, they would shade it out. Lesser bushes, trimmed a bit now and then, could be very attractive. Bridalwreath Spirea with white flowers, has flowing branches, shrub rosebushes, Althea, Fothergilla, Viburnums, Hydrangeas, Elderberry, Blueberry come to mind for semi-medium sizes 4-7ft. Dwarf Fothergilla, Japanese Spirea, Beautyberry, Sweetspire, Potentilla in colors, Duetzia, Fairy roses (thorny but bloom most of the summer!) could be among the small shrub/bushes used for smaller edging, under 4ft. These are just group bush names, with many varieties to choose from. Lots of flowers at different seasonal times, texture from leaf shapes. Great fall color, lots of bird berries if you like birds. There are many other bushes in those sizes, both open shaped, upright, full or flowing branch shapes. The evergreens could be corners or planted at each path, both sides, to aid in tying hedges together. I like evergreens, just want something more than a green spot. I probably would not want a solid wall of only green for my hedge. The yellow tipped Cypress, all sizes, are colorful year-round. A third idea might be to check into grasses. You could do a tall outside layer, with shorter descending grass layers to the vegtables. It could be very visual, colorful,but maybe not as fully screening as bushes. Grasses would need shearing every spring, weed whacker works well. Grass is tough, has a flowing look, moving in wind. Plants seem to stay put, clump pretty well, not spreading out of control. I don't know what kind of animals you might need to deal with. Grass won't stop much. Bushes probably won't do much to stop larger animals either or dogs. If deer are a problem, you may have to net bushes, some people say that helps. Yews are poison for horses, not sure about cattle, sheep or goats. Early fall is a good time to plant, often can find plants on sale. Take some pictures of project for us when you decide on the final plan. Sounds like fun!

I'll have to get a pic up. I'm in Indianapolis (zone 6a). My neighbor has a fence that runs down our property line. That fence starts at his house and runs the length of the property. We are about 40' apart from each other. Closest to the house, I started planting the gigantic grass. It's nice, grows in thick and screens his house well. That decorative grass covers about 20 feet of the fence line. I'm looking to cover the next 25-30 feet with some other type of screen... a hedge of some kind. I could continue the tall grass and I'm sure it would technically do what I want but would like some sort of "texture" in the hedge line down the neighbor's fence... something to simply break up the routine and give the feeling that the landscape changes. The goal is to get something that grows as thick as possible, I would like 10-12' high (or so), and around 6' "wide" so that I don't take up more of the yard than I need to. I don't mind pruning a hedge once a year so something that grows "big" would likely be ok as long as it doesn't require multiple prunes per year. I don't know enough about different types of hedges that grow well in the area. Near my work I found a couple things that I thought looked nice and asked a local nursery what they are. One is some type of viburnum and the other, they said, was a red twigged dogwood. After looking up the dogwood that is definitely not what I saw. Either way... simply looking for recommendations that I can look up and see what they look like, growing information, etc. Thanks again!

Wax myrtle and Yaupon Holly are the first ones that come to mind. If its not too dry, Osmanthus Americanus (Devilwood) may work too. Carolina Cherry Laurel and Yellow Anise are good privacy shrubs too, but im not sure if they'd be poisonous to your dog.

I'd like to be there to observe if you two ever meet face to face. Yeah, my mom has 5 acres out near Shelton, covered with Madrona, evergreen trees, salal, and ehuck. I transplanted some ehuck in the shade of a Red Cedar, I don't quite remember when, maybe even 10 years ago, and it is 4-5' tall and wide, big enough to have berries now. It is very healthy and green. My yard was logged by PO who also jerkily planted grass everywhere at expense of the native flora, but in places there are salal, Oregon Holly Grape, Trillium, Flowering currant, stinging nettle, miner's lettuce, and so on. It's great to re-establish the local flora a little at a time. Not that ehuck is local, but I have seen wild Red Huckleberry. Ehuck would certainly take patience. Blueberries would be fast.