Along with your criteria of low maintenance, high privacy and very inexpensive you may also want to consider using plants that are practical around a swimming pool, this means plants that are relatively clean in regards to shedding or have large leaves that are easy to pick up and won't clog an intake filter like lots of small falling flowers and leaves do. Several palms are fairly clean in regards to shedding and can give you some privacy. As far as the expense goes, I suppose that is a relative term. Some varieties to research would be Trachycarpus fortunei, Chamaerops humilis and Syagrus queen palm. You could do a dense planting of cannas between the trunks and might even have room for some succulents. If palms are not your thing then you might consider some large espalier type trees such as Magnolia little Gem or possibly some narrow growing hedge plants such as pittosporums or podocarpus I think it would be a good idea to visit your local nursery and see what they have to recommend for your particular neighborhood/ climate zone.

well, I am no expert,but if I was you I would start them inside now in pots near a sunny window and they will get a head start on the season, or I would think that you could plant them in the garden now, we are not going to get a hard enough frost to freeze down a few inches and destroy the tubors at this point. But if you plant them outside they will take awhile to get to a good size.

It may depend on what the hay is from. Up here in the northern part of the state the pinestraw and hay (wheat/rye/oat) can be found at any home improvement store and not uncommon to find both at roadside stands out of the back of a trailer. Both run about $3.50 a bale and I can tell you it does add up so the longer it lasts, the less often you have to buy it and it's also time consuming to install it. The hay is used most often for seedling lawns which is something that might not be that common in south ga. You can harvest your own pinestraw pretty easily. It's best from the longleaf pines though. Using hay might return a little nitrogen, giving you some fertilizer value then again there was a topic in this forum not long ago that discussed the downsides of using grass clippings as mulch and I can't remember all of them but heat build-up was one of them. As for controlling weeds, you can simply use a pre-emergent in your planting beds or I've discovered if you get the hay about 6 months before you actually need it and let it sit outside, the seeds wont be as viable later down the road. In fact I've got a leftover bale sitting out in the yard that was left over from a lawn project in the fall and the hay seeds germinated and growing quite vigorously all around the bale. So I go and cut it periodically and stuff the new hay in with the bale. It's like having my own little hay factory. As for plants, someone else would know more about the perrenials than I although I don't see why your choice of mulch makes it different than other gardens in terms of what to grow. It may be helpful to know what the sun and soil conditions are if you didn't already mention it.

Good idea. I put a cedar next to the one year-old garden. The peony roots are in that bed and I think it will be as good as can be, conditions considered, in there. The newer bed is thinner in width and the soil is all purchased topsoil, garden soil and compost. It looks pretty happy so far. It's not nearly as bad there, windwise, as I thought. The winds have been upwards of 40 MPH the past two days and it's been fine (it's only a foot tall now though...) Thanks madspinner! I guess I'll find out if the difference between our zones is severe. This whole area is very new to me.