What a chore, up and down a tall ladder over and over each time, every year. Including lugging the ladder. And then cleaning up and taking away the trimmings.

Sheared hedges need to taper out from the top down or the lower part becomes thin, as it is being shaded too much by the upper part. Also if you keep shearing back to the same point for years you start to get bald patches and stubs, that have to be dealt with through selective cutting out of these stubs - to induce sprouting farther back inside. If you wait too long to start doing this with most kinds of conifers - including Thuja - they will not come back well, if at all from old bare wood.

If you can just choose and plant something that will mature within the desired dimensions then you don't need nearly as many plants - and don't have to do all that clipping, in perpetuity - as you would with a sheared hedge.

And the formality of such a hedge would be out of context with your setting, a discordant element.

Unless you would like the contrast it provided. Personally I might find a closely trimmed hedge kind of odd cutting across your sweeping expanse of lawn - if that is what you are showing as being planned.

I have a Little Giant ladder that gets up to (18'?)...

==>>> set it up ... climb to 18 feet with your gas or electric shear.. hand pruners .. etc ... and see if you dont fall off.. just standing there.. let alone reaching around ...

can you tell us a nearby city ... z6 is half the US and wildly divergent ..

now that you gave us a pic ... one deciduous tree ... about 1/3 the distance from your house to the fence.. will hide the view for a good part of the year.. about a decade faster than your other ideas ... dont limit your thinking to the property line itself .... and who stares out the back windows in winter ..

what are the stakes in the ground out there???

ken

People post here repeatedly about trying to screen unwanted houses etc. with hedges installed over along the property line, as close as they can get to the unwanted view without leaving their own lot. As Ken alludes to this is actually about the least efficient way to eliminate a view - think of it this way, somebody standing near the property line and holding their hand up to try and block your view vs. you holding your hand up in front of your own face. In other words think about possible ways to block the neighbor over where you are looking from, inside or near your house. Instead of planting a big long hedge near the property line. One that might need decades to make the other house disappear.

And will bisect what at the moment appears as a single large lawn, as though yours and theirs were the same property - like on an estate, that has more than one building on it. An illusion that has something to be said for it.

As long as there aren't any problems with unwanted dogs or children running back and forth, or other issues stemming from the two lots not being physically separated by barriers.

For such things sturdy fencing may be needed anyway, rather than hedging - which can often be slipped through, even after being in place for many years.

This is a hideous view directly into your neighbor's yard and life. I have a similar situation at my house and I absolutely hate the lack of privacy. Without calling anyone out specifically, there were some incredibly bad suggestions posted here. I hope you ignored them all and planted some kind of evergreen - green giant or otherwise. You don't need to shear into a formal hedge.

It has been 3 years since this post so you probably won't see this response. I'm *very* curious how this turned out.

The boys are doing the best they can

They are relatively new here

please don't upset them

relative to dirt

I’ll try to remember to post some pictures.

I ended up with:

3 Prague viburnum.
1 redbud tree
A bank of 2 Skip laurel
—space for roots of tree on other side of fence
3 skip laurels

I then added 2 crape myrtles

The problem I’m having? Ravenous deer have absolutely DECIMATED my Skip Laurels. I added temporary fencing, but now I am trying to salvage the two that would offer best screening. I may have to replace

deer tend to not like green giant