Loropetalum chinense (Chinese fringe-flower) is one worth considering for your area. There are several recent cultivars of differing statures and some combination of green or purple leaves with white or pink flowers. The purple leaf/pink flower standard variety has reasonably quick growth to 6 ft and beyond. Some named cultivars, such as 'Ruby Snow', claim to top out around 6 ft, but don't know about their growth rates.

Another that may be worth asking about for your zone is teucrium fruticans (bush/shrubby/silver germander). In the U.S., most common in California and, more recently, Texas as a low water use option. Standard form tops out around 6 to 8 ft, though there are smaller named cultivars. Grows pretty fast to 3 or 4 ft from a 4 inch start and takes hard shearing for a formal look... if you don't mind getting the clippers out a couple times a year. Natural form looks nice too, if you have the space.

I like photinia. Attractive red tinged leaves, prolific white blooms in the spring, fast growing, prunable if you want, or not.

yardvaark, would the perennial vines be evergreen? It is a beautiful idea!

The typical fast growing privacy screening plants for your area are wax myrtle (Morella cerifera) and Carolina laurel (Prunus caroliniana). Both are native species, evergreen and widely available and well-adapted to the area and climate. But they are not the only possible choices - conifers like the Green Giants or other Thuja species (can be pruned to maintain a specific height) , hollies and other types of laurel (like English or Portuguese) are often used as well.

Tea olive (Osmanthus fragrans) will also make a suitable privacy hedge but is not especially fast growing (rate is described as slow to moderate) and camellias are just plain slow :-) And you will want to avoid the redtip photinia as well, as they are subject to a very debilitating bacterial blight that is decimating plantings across the southeast and in many other areas of the country as well. Most quality nurseries no longer carry them any longer.

Tink, it depends on the vines that are available and what one chooses. Personally though, I think too much is made of plants being evergreen. Once they get up and running, the branching of deciduous plants can be quite dense and offer decent screening ... especially at a time when people are not out using their yard and viewing the screening at a distance. I've seen many deciduous shrubs and vines that cannot be seen through in the winter. Many of the deciduous vines offer spectacular flowering shows or fall color.

A note on "slow." I've spent many years being dazzled by how fast plants actually grow and think it is a mistake (many times ... not 100%) to sacrifice the qualities of good plants for the speed of crappy plants that one will later wish they could trade in on a better model. I've seen tea olive go from 30"-36" go to six feet in only a couple of years. It just takes regular water and fertilizer. (Soaker hoses for a long hedge would be in order here.)

It's too bad about the redtip Photinia. I've seen it decimated in many places around the Southeast and noticed in the same places. untrimmed specimens thriving. I have always wished someone would do intensive research on whether or not untrimmed plants have greater ability to survive ... or at least be unaffected by a main method of fungal disease spread. The flowering, untrimmed Photinia is quite handsome. The trimmed hedge can look a bit garish.

I definitely don't want to sacrifice quality for speed. As long as there is a moderate growth rate. We have boxwoods at the front of the and they are just too slow for a privacy screen. We have a privet at the front of the house that has grown like crazy and I considered it for the back yard but didn't realize they were invasive in this area. Some thing that will grow sufficiently over the next few years and stays dense all year is the goal. If money wasn't an issue, I'd put a 6ft privacy fence up.

RE: the photinia issue. I am as about as far away from the southeastern portion of this country as one can get yet we see the leaf blight here as well. And yes, one does see plants in great condition with no sign of disease and others struggling to stay alive. Unfortunately, the strugglers seem to be in the majority.

Interestingly, photinias grown as individual specimens rather than in hedges or other monocultures seem to escape infection more easily. Just down the street from me is a stunning tree-like specimen that appears flawless while a couple of houses away is the remains of hedge, barely alive and with only a few bright red new leaves topping bare stems. Ugly doesn't begin to describe it!

According to the research I have read on this problem, hard pruning is one way to control the disease, as the spores remain and hold on to affected foliage so one removes the spores (and therefore the potential for reinfection) by removing all the affected foliage. And photinias respond well to hard pruning, much like laurels. And avoid any overhead irrigation if at all possible although damp spring weather is pretty hard to avoid in most areas of the country. California and other parts of the southwest may be about the only places one can find disease-free photinias, simply because of the very dry climate.

Thanks for info, Gardendal. It would corroborate my observations that some individual tree-form specimens (Where the tops have been allowed to grow naturally) can exist in the midst of areas where trimmed Photinia are decimated. While I've been away from areas where it's grown for some time, I'm pretty sure I read in the past that pruning can help spread the disease. Best to grow it where it does well.