This is a red flag to me: > could they be planted just a foot or two from the fence, growing only out away from it? If this is a solid fence, like stockade or board, there's a significant "rain shadow" effect that you'll need to consider. IMHO, it's almost impossible to grow anything within 2 or 3 feet of a solid fence, unless you're willing and able to provide most of the moisture yourself - and that's a lot of water. I have such a fence, and wasted a lot of cash (3 times) trying to establish rows of holly, cedar, and, finally, magnolia (M. virginiana, in my case). When I finally gave up on crowding the plants against the fence, acknowledged that this privacy screen was a very important aspect of my yard, and set aside enough space for it to do it properly, I succeeded on the 4th try, by planting everything centered at least 5' from the fence. I still had to irrigate and mulch, but it was a much more reasonable amount of water. Last, I'd be very careful placing any hollies anywhere near a pool, except ones with smooth leaves. You've only got to step on a dry leaf with bare feet once to remember it for a very long time.

Thanks all for the info. I did get the trellis, far from the best kind and it is no where near tall enough for what I would really like, but for the price I couldn't go wrong for now. Picked it up at Jo ann fabrics marked down. It was originally $24.99 and was supposed to be marked down 60%. BUT, the local store in town had it marked down to 80% off for July 4th only, which made it $4.99 and with an additional 10% off coupon that I had it ended up being $4.49. It's about 4 feet tall when put in the ground, not the sturdiest going, but will serve the purpose for the sweet pea vines this year. Will post a pic tomorrow, the sun is supposed to be out here on the east coast and be a beautiful day. Hard to believe the forecast, we haven't seen many of those kind of days for a long, long time. Fran

So here is my idea. Where I have circled I want to now and plant privacy trees. The line is where my property ends. Where I'm mowing and planting is technically the village, but seeing how is all over grown with weeds I don't think anyone would mind. I under stand if the neighborhood is going to be expanded then it's fair game to knock it down but seeing how it's such a small piece I don't think anyone would care. This is all the same area, just different angles of it.

So let me point out the obvious, that's not a brick wall/fence. That's a stacked tumbled paver wall that doesn't have mortar between the courses. It may or may not have an epoxy binder between the blocks. I'm almost certain it's not a veneer over structural concrete block. That's why it's limited in its height. Unlike your examples, it doesn't have vertical "posts" that go all the way up and would provide the needed structural support for the wood fence portion. Those "posts" in your examples are made from structural concrete block with a brick veneer and will provide resistance to perpendicular horizontal forces such as wind, or a climbing kid. That's not at all what you have. The only thing worse than a kid on the loose is a block structure that falls over on a kid as they scale it. A fenced in back yard for kids/pets isn't a bad thing. It can be chain link or wood privacy fence. Yes, jokes about shock collars, leashes and such aside, it's also time to parent.