>Podocarpus comes in a blue so that might help not be so..boring.

>Bamboo is interesting but drops leaves all the time.

>I wouldn't do bay laurel as the leaves are big and will look choppy when trimmed and it also needs a bit of shade.

>Some tall ceanothus ..get real tall but also get wide.

>Ligustrum will take a long time to get that tall.

If you want green the problem is that green needs water. Hedges aren't the best at being drought tolerant. They don't consuming alot of water but they still need some)

A row of Moringa Olieferra is drought tolerant and can be hedged easily. We planted some seeds and discovered that the ones at one end were over solid granite. They struggle. We have them on drip and watched them turn yellow. They are not fans of water. They need water to start, but ours have to be pruned or they grow 80' tall. The entire tree is edible, and certainly not boring. Constant bloomers. The flowers smell so strong and good they do attract bees which might not be good near a pool. Except they don't ever leave the trees. I guess the bees prefer the blossoms more than sunscreen on humans. We have ours near our pool. We use the leaves in salads and they make great, nutrutious mulch. I'm not a fan of the pods for eating. Doesn't appeal to my Southern California taste. I would vote for Podocarpus above, but it can get tall too. We had an oleander hedge when we lived in the desert. They volunteer themselves on our acreage here. When you hedge them, you are cutting their pretty blooms, but they make good hedges. Drought friendly. Ours never get a drop of water. They are weeds here in Riverside county.

Have you researched container grown plants? It just sounds fishy to me. You want a row of small trees to grow in a container that is less than a yard deep. How will it support the canopy? There is a container forum and I think you should go there for help.

I don't think you would want Vitex. It has what I will call dust dropping from it all the time. There is also an odor that many people dislike. It is very pretty.

How about Photinia? Its pretty 'typical', but sometimes those typical thing performs well. You've likely seen it before. During the late winter and spring in flushes new red growth and white flowers. Many dead head and sheer the plant and its flowers but if it is allowed to 'do its thing' it can be very nice. There is a 'fragrance' to it that some folks don't like but if you're sitting in the pool 20' away you may not smell it. We use this plant often for its quick growth in full sun, interesting color, availability and affordable cost.

You should try living on a golf course sometime with a pool! No privacy ever, but everyone is friendly... and jealous on hot days! Note the absence of hedges.

I have Xylosma. About eight of them. In my back yard I have two that I allowed to grow as a tree. I would say it is between eighteen to twenty feet tall. In the side yard they are a hedge. I prefered to prune them rather than shear them. I like the natural shape. I live near Sacramento. It gets very hot here. They do fine. In fact, they get zero water during our dry season. Of course mine are well established.

Do all berries stain?

They have random thornes.

That is a google image, not mine.

Oh, boy. You have a really, really narrow space there. That's going to be difficult. Look at
the conical growing junipers, like 'Blue Arrow', or dwarf repeat dwarf
italian cypress.
Or put up a trellis and grow a non-rampant vine on it, such as star jasmine.

blue arrow juniper

Grewia occidentalis? It's floppy when it's young but it can be sheared into a really flat hedge -- we had it growing in a 12" gap between the sidewalk and the fence at our old house. It's totally indifferent to water, sterile, and pretty much always in bloom.

We have a hedge on three sides that I "affectionately" refer to as Hedgezilla that I would love to tear out because it is a BORING, man-made monoculture of a labor-intensive maintenance chore (podocarpus gracillior). While yes, it provides privacy, that's all it does. It appears to offer no wildlife benefits except as a haven for unsavory creatures from time to time. Although the space between the property line block wall and the pool is very narrow, I have recently begun planting a variety of drought-tolerant evergreen trees in front of the hedge with the intention of eventually tearing out the hedge behind them after they get bigger (we're not rich and can't buy big box trees). The goal is a more natural-looking environment (and hopefully, a reduced maintenance headache). I have several acacia stenophylla (shoestring acacia) which provide a lacy, open weeping effect, but like silver sheen, it's not dense--but the good news is, there's no litter from it. I'm mixing the acacias in with a couple of other uprights as contrast and repeating the mix so it doesn't get too jumbled. It's still a work in progress and why I don't want to put in a picture, but I'm pleased with the effect so far. But you might want to consider your style overall in picking what you want to do. While a tightly clipped hedge might lend itself to a contemporary feel, depending on the plant you pick, it can also look very traditional and formal which may not be the look you're after. You might want to look at the some garden books to see what kind of garden style appeals to you, before you commit. Just remember, a hedge will be, above all else, boring. And do yourself a favor, run from the ficus.

By the way, you can almost never grow anything with satisfaction in two feet of depth. But aside from that, I have some upright rosemary (Tuscan blue) growing around the pool equipment that I keep tightly clipped to about 3-1/2 feet in height. It lends itself to a Mediterranean vibe, is easy to keep trimmed and smells nice when you brush up against it (and you can use it in cooking). I don't know if it will grow to 12 feet, but for this particular purpose, I'm pleased.

Surfcitysocal, he said the box is open at the bottom.

Steve it looks like there are a few specific windows on the neighbor's house that present a privacy issue. Maybe one way to think about this is that you need a few strategically located trees rather than a full hedge?