Pierce, just be aware that you will need a male holly for every 5-7 female plants to get berries. Because you will be planting tightly, you might be able to stretch it to one per 10 females. Most of the male forms I know of are shorter growing than the females, in general. You could get around this by using 1-gallon males and planting in the same hole as the females/'Nellie R.Stevens' as you space them out - they can grow up and be available, but are 'hidden' among the mass of the females. I know 15 gal. 'Nellie R. Stevens' are available, but can't speak as to price. While the 'Nellie R. Stevens' are a good hedge plant, if you wanted to mix in another type of tree, the Thuja 'Emerald Green' (a.k.a. 'Emerald Beauty' or 'Smaragd') is another good hedging plant, growing fairly fast to 12-15', and about 3-5' wide. You can fairly easily find 5 gallon plants, at about 4-6' tall - and pay more for them than 1 gal. - so they might be good where you want immediate height. While running bamboos will provide a solid screen once they are established, they will also RUN!! I have pulled out runners that are up to 8' long, and about 6" deep, in the spring. As long as you mow faithfully, you can keep them in check. However, even asphalt won't stop them from coming up - cement MIGHT! You can buy barriers, but you need to make a 3' deep trench for the barrier to be effective, and even then, you will probably have to watch for escapees over the top. Clumping bamboos are much better behaved, and will expand, but stay where you plant them.

The spetic is only 1 year old, this is a newly built house with no landscaping. The 23 ft spot seems narrow to me for most pine trees. We're on a 3 acre lot and this is the narrowest part of the lot. There are only 23 feet of width between our house and the lot line for us to plant some sort of a windblock within. The septic tank sits within between the lot line and the house for part of the area that we need to plant a windbreak. It's a single story house so I'm guessing approx 20 ft in height would be fine but would be good with taller as well. I would love to do pine trees like spruce or something but if they get to be 20+ ft wide this does not seem like it would work for us. Any other ideas would be appreciated!

So the sanding would not even be necessary if the deck had not gotten too far gone. When I had a deck that needed the occasional repainting, it was about a 2-hour job from beginning to end, mostly with a roller and a little brushing at edges. When I bought the deck, it had been let go by prior owner so I had to pressure wash and do a little sanding (with a handheld sander). But never had to sand again when painting. Just wash. And your deck looks very nice.

You have a nice big yard. The first thing is to decide how you and your family and guests will be using it. Do you want cookouts, a garden, soccer practice, or a quiet retreat? Plan your activities and the landscaping plan will evolve from that. You might find you need a cute garden shed and that area would solve your privacy issues. The big mistake is random planting of shrubs and trees before you have a plan. It’s like buying a shirt you don’t really like but p, having spent money on it, you compound the problem with a sweater that matches, but itches, and pants the right color, but baggy! There is never complete “privacy” especially in this age of satellites and drones. Make your plan to make your space beautiful and comfortable for your family and place trees and shrubs to enhance your lifestyle. Plopping down five or six $50 shrubs won’t make your view of your yard beautiful. Visit local public gardens to see how they solve the problem, talking to their gardeners who live to be helpful. Longwood gardens springs to mind and I found several others.