Laurie - my sister planted an urn in front of her house and some other container combos back on her deck had some of the plants you mentioned including the verbena and some similar colored petunias. The front one was pretty cool and should look great as it fills out more through summer: Looks like dracena spike in the middle, lime green sweet potato vine around the edges and both a wine and mixed color pink/green coleus around the middle.

The only local source for FP is Worm's Way - and you'll pay dearly for it. The best local source for most grow media, fertilizers, and a bunch of other stuff is Hummert International up in Earth City. This includes Turface, perlite, peat, Fafard Mixes (get #51 or #52 and you wouldn't have to build your own 5-1-1 - it's more expensive though). There are 2 good sources of pine fines locally but you have to buy in bulk: Kirkwood Material Supply and St. Louis Compost. At various times you will find one has a better price than the other - same with the delivery fees. Either will work as-is for the 5-1-1. You can only get Axis locally at OK Hatchery or through a guy at the Botanical Gardens .. but I lost his number, sorry. OK Hatchery is always slightly expensive on most of their stuff but at least they have a wide variety. You can get Gran-i-grit there too - but I've stopped using that except for very small pots (buy the perlite + charcoal from Hummert if you want to substitute). You will find with our water that if you use soiless mixes with high nitrate fertilizers (like the one you purchased) that you will have some serious micronutrient issues. You want no greater than a 3:1 ratio of nitrate:ammonium and probably more like 2:1 if you want the pH to stabilize in the pot around 5.5-6.5. Note what it says on the link you gave for the label: "Potential Basicity: 131 lbs calcium carbonate equivalent per ton" - all other things being equal if the nitrates are taken up by the plants with that fertilizer you will find the pH creeping up over time. We're already starting with high pH and moderately high alkalinity. That fertilizer is also lacking S and we don't have enough in our water and we also have very low atmospheric SO2 levels which plants can use in lieu of sulfates - or I do where I am anyway. If you want to use the Cal-Mag product then you should alternate it with an acid-reaction fertilizer that contains S. 25-5-15 would fit the bill (you can get it at Hummert) but so would a bunch of other options. Or the FP if you want to spring for it (supplement the FP with calcium sulfate if you aren't acidulating with sulfuric acid). If urea doesn't bother you I think Hummert carries the 24-8-16 Peter's product as well - that will give you the 3-1-2 but with no calcium. You would alternate that with the Cal-Mag. In my experience even if you do use an acid reaction fertilizer you will find that the pH and alkalinity of our water is such that you will eventually run into micro deficiencies with both mixes. Be looking for signs of Zn, Mn, and Fe deficiency and have a plan to correct them. For aeroponics I would definitely stick with a 2 or 3 part nutrient formula system. Or make your own fertilizer concentrates from scratch (larger initial investment, huge savings over time). To do aeroponics correctly you're going to need high quality pH and EC meters, and a lot of reading or expensive trial and error...

Some other factors to consider when thinking about hedges would include how much or little water you want to provide, whether it also has to be deer resistant, whether you are dealing with full sun or shade, and are you high enough up in Kensington that you need to worry about freeze tolerance? It can be significantly colder at the highest parts of Kensington that it isn't quite a Sunset zone 16 in a bad winter, with lows down to 20F a real possibility. I work on lots of gardens in the Berkeley/Oakland/Kensington hills areas, and it may be most useful to see what is working well in your neighborhood, and what appeals to you. You may also need to factor in that neighbors may get riled up if you block their distant views, just as you would if someone blocked your views. It may pay to take a more measured approach to creating privacy without planting a future monster. Personally I find many reasons to consider using clumping bamboos for hedging purposes; with the main reason being they don't need pruning to control size if you select the appropriate species for the height desired, they tend to stay narrow yet can grow tall, and pruning is easier when it simply involved removing old culms rather than ladders and pole saws. On the other hand, most bamboo species prefer a good amount of summer irrigation and are constantly shedding leaves and culm sheaths. The Sunset Western Garden Book Encyclopedia has a good section on screening shrubs, listing the various pros and cons. I would also seriously consider that the fastest growing hedges also tend to be the ones that require the most pruning to control size.

I would stay way from all of the ones you listed . Check out amazon reviews . I would stick with u- line , subzero , perlick , Next or Miele