Hi, bookworm226. You've got a difficult situation with the road so much higher than your property. I think a photo would help. I have some experience with Leylands, as my neighbor to the south has a closely-planted Leyland hedge about 40-50' tall. That means the Leylands shade my garden way more than I appreciate -- and the time may come when there won't be enough sun to grow veggies in my raised beds. So if the road is to your south, you'll want to take into consideration the height of whatever you plant. [The oldest Leylands (in England, I believe) are currently 130' tall -- and still growing.] If I'm doing the math correctly, 10 acres with a 3000' frontage would mean your property averages about 145' deep. If that's the case, how much pasture can you afford to lose to this screen -- i.e., what width of tree is acceptable? Depending which trees you choose, you could be losing a lot of your pasture to non-productive vegetation. Would a narrow hedge be better than trees? I'm not a plant expert, but hawthorn and nannyberry are both good for tall hedges (deciduous, of course); in addition, they provide food for wildlife. Speaking of food: since you're farming, have you thought of planting edibles for your screen? Maybe nuts or something that might not be so obvious that passers-by would stop to pilfer? If you're going for the natural look, I think you should use a variety of trees and/or tall shrubs of varying heights, and not plant them in a regular pattern. Varying the width of the planting would also contribute to a more natural look.

Geeze Mere... We paved our driveway 2 years ago. The guy did a lousy job, it squished out and onto the neighbors property. The only way to remove it is to cut it out. We haven't done that yet, although we planned to. Have the paving guy come back and talk to him about doing that. Hemlocks are huge. What was she thinking? I think I would get the fence guy out pronto, think about getting the fence put in now. They will surely grow over the line, if you cut them on your side it totally ruins the look. Are you going to have a surveyer come out? Well, one good thing to come of this, she won't be borrowing the mower lol I'm so sick of neighbors. You try to be nice then get pooped on. Wonder if she'll let you see the kids any more. That's the hardest. I was relieved when my iron borrowing neighbor moved, some of the stunts she pulled were low. I don't get it. She borrowed & broken my iron & 2 cell phones, yet I'm the one that's the (insert word here)... Halloween they brought the kids over, hadn't seen them in months. I was then outside working in the garden, kneeling on their property... Out she comes with the 3 youngest to pick up the oldest from the bus... She puts my little sweetie girl on her right side, then proceeds to drive the carriage on the grass, walking as far from me as possible. She made sure my little sweetie girl didn't see me. I didn't get to say good bye to the kids. The mother was shipping them off to their G'ma's, they were loaded in the car, my husband almost didn't get to say goodbye. It's probably for the best, it hurt me to see the kids go, couldn't imagine how the little ones felt. Funny how people think. She swore to everyone that would listen that I gave her a broken iron, which is hilarious if you know me. I'm so anal about replacing things I think are going. Worked fine to iron my clothes for dad's viewing. I wonder if yours will start telling stories too. Mere the home-wrecker. If she was so worried about her husband doing something behind her back, why did she even start a friendship?

I'd suggest getting your property surveyed and ask the surveyor to leave a clear visual marker on the surface - here that meant the pin in the ground, with a length of florescent pink ribbon attached to it :-) When we moved here in 1999 there had never been a fence between our property and the neighbour on the north side. The owner(s) there bought the house from the husband's parents - who were original owners from when the houses were built in the early 1960s. We had a 'rescued' dog who was unreliably friendly with strangers, so needed to put up some sort of barrier between the properties. The neighbours wanted to retain the open look and were afraid we'd put up a 6' wooden wall for a fence :-) We didn't want to do that either, so we all agreed to put up a temporary fence using horribly tacky plastic mesh stuff! We put it up along where both we and the neighbours thought the property line ran. A year or two later we were ready to put up a more permanent fence (black chainlink to be consistent with the surrounding properties and retain an open look). So we had a survey done. It turned out that where we all thought the property line ran was incorrect and we had been gardening on a foot or two of the neighbour's property - with their consent because they didn't think it was theirs! Since the neighbours are nice and gardeners too, they 'adopted' the plants that were on their property as it was easier than digging them up and moving them! We've been very lucky that all our adjoining neighbours are very nice. But having a survey done puts everybody 'on the same page' and is much better than guessing.

I think you are overestimating the amount of shade this fence will cast. 5' is not all that tall and in midsummer there should be minimal shade during midday as the sun is more or less directly overhead......just some early morning shade. In winter, the sun is lower in the horizon and that will create a shadier situation but that is often much less of a concern due to plant dormancy. My old garden had a 6' tall privacy fence on top of a concrete retaining wall (maybe 7' height in total) along its southern edge and the area directly in front of the fence received very little shade. And that's with being considerably further north than you with the summer sun at a much lower aspect. Any plant suitable for part shade will work.