What about a fence with slats or let a climber go through the chainlink? Kerria is slow growing for me and in a year has only grown a few feet. Perhaps a native tree or shrub would grow faster. I'm from the west coast, so have no suggestions. Red twig dogwood is a fast grower, but twiggy and bare in winter. Starts easily from hardwood cuttings. Variegated elderberry is a nice accent, too. Suggest if you create a hedge make it a mixed hedge. That way if one plant dies you can replace with anything you desire. A uniform hedge is always a lot more work to maintain and the odd spot out is a frustration. I've read a suggestion is to insert a pole with a birdhouse or leave the dead trunk and plant a climber 12" away to go up it. Hope that helps

I have been reading about lacebugs and it is a big concern here. Apparently the "hairier" leafed varieties (Impeditum??) are less susceptible. I was talking to a woman last week and she said that she has managed to keep them at bay by keeping a close watch on the leaves and washing the undersides of the leaves if she sees evidence of their presence. A rhododendron garden in Portland is using some type of sprinkler system to spray upward from underneath the leaves.

My spot has a few -- maybe even several -- hours morning sun and when not is fairly bright shade much of the time -- or at least today has appeared so. I had a soil test done and the Ph was a little over 7, which is why I assume I need to alter the soil. I do have blueberries growing and also altered the soil for them. I planted them last year, but so far they're doing well. I'm getting discouraged with the idea of all the extra work rhododendrons might require with soil amending and winter care and am wondering if I should go for hydrangeas, black lace sambucus, and maybe a variegated weigela that can handle half shade instead. Or, I could just keep one or two rhododendrons and mix them in with a few of those others? I do see neighbors with azaleas and rhododendrons blooming and there are huge blueberry farms near me. So, this must be a decent climate for the plants. Any encouraging words or would you change course? Thanks for your feedback so far.

I'm with Mad_gallica and Kentrees that you should move the gate so it isn't centered on what you don't want to look at. My mixed shrub border had slightly different goals than yours, but the general idea was the same - a way to block an unattractive view. My area had a height limit of 20' or so since we have solar panels behind this, so my particular plants might not work for your use, but having a green wall of only one or two species in such an informal rural setting looks really artificial to my eye, so you might want to consider spacing the trees you have out to closer to their ultimate width, and filling in rows (staggered front to back - see photo 2) with different evergreen species/selections and denser deciduous trees & shrubs so it looks less formal. As someone suggested above, you can do groups or clumps of plants with different heights and species. (Add some bamboo screening - comes in rolls - on and above the fence for now to block between the trees until things fill in a bit.) I used three staggered rows of plants with repetition of several types of evergreens down the length. The bed is about 15' deep and 60' long give or take 10'. Looking NE from the SW side (June 2010 - planted October 2009) In December of 2010 after one full growing season looking west from the dirt pile just visible on the right (east) edg e of the photo above After 4 growing seasons with some added perennials but not much in the way of added shrubs it is fairly full. Late October 2013 Looking down the back side as fall color is just beginning to develop - no perennials since this is the work area side. Here's a photo in taken late November 2014 that was from a similar angle to the second photo at the top. Remember that vehicle traffic on a drive needs less height to block it from view, while you will want more height where the barn is. So perhaps center one spruce on the barn from your most frequent viewing spot and place the other to block the barn from the next-most viewed spot. Randomly space the arborvitaes along the remainder of the length, with some clumped or staggered front to back, again thinking of their ultimate size and your viewing spots. Then get some large shrubs/small trees to add in to hide the view of the drive, considering how densely branched they will be, whether there are flowers or colored foliage or interesting winter features. So something like one of the really large rhododendrons like Roseum elegans might work to block views of the drive (evergreen, flowers, and dense) while you could put a lilac (densely twiggy in winter, spring flowers) slightly offset from one of the evergreens and in a different plane, either set closer to the fence or farther from the fence than the evergreens.