Thanks for the prompt replies! I'm not unrealisticly thinking the sound would be gone. Our developer was just forced to put a (cheap)soundwall in to get the noise to city code. It's helped somewhat, so I know that even walls can't do a whole lot if they aren't tall enough. I'm just hoping to reduce the hollow echoing between our houses, not eliminate the freeway sound. The path between our houses is parallel to the freeway. I think what happens is the sound hits the side of my house, bounces to his, and then goes back and forth. I should have been more clear, but didn't want too long of a post on my first time. I thought perhaps bamboo would filter/absorb at least a little of the reverberating waves as they travelled between houses. I still may be way off in my thinking! My walkway is about 5' wide and 30' long where I was thinking of putting long, narrow planters along the fence. Wouldn't afternoon breezes help with the leaf rusting sound, since the breezes flow along the walkway? I have some queen palms and am installing a spill fountain in the backyard to help drown out the sound as well. I figure, the more other noises I have, the less freeway noise I will hear. Please don't get me wrong, I LOVE where I live, don't wanna move, just wanna naturally reduce/absorb noise if possible. As far as the good neighbor/leaf drop question, I would guess some (probably varieties with small, dense vegetation) would leave more leaves for my neighbor (and I) to pick up? Thanks for the help. I really do appreciate it.

Since bamboo is hollow, I think you might actually amplify the sound. You might be able to block some sound with something taller and wider, but I don't think you would with only 3-4 ft.--the sound will come around and over. If I was going to try something, it would be larger and the side toward the air conditioner would be something softer than wood...perhaps foam, styrofoam, or acoustical tiles (like on a ceiling). Another possibility is heavy cotton batting (something like that is what our dishwasher is wrapped in, and it is nearly totally silent), but that might be more difficult to use, unless you staple it to plywood or a wooden frame. I realize none of those are pretty, but they could be disguised. To avoid digging, make it something like folding screens or 2 double posts on a stand that whatever material you use could be dropped into. I know that is not a good description, but maybe I can draw a picture of it and attach it. Look on Craigslist for free or cheap materials to experiment with--insulating styrofoam is frequently on there, along with misc. lumber and bricks (at least in our area those items are on there almost every day). I wouldn't put a lot of money into it (unless you have another use for the materials) until I had experimented and thought it would work.

Goodness! Was so busy with the move, I missed part of the Pogrom! Anyhoo...we were in Mississippi for a board meeting, and got a look at our old garden, which is looking GREAT. Thought I'd do an update. As I'd stated, we were worried that we'd lose a ton, selling in this market, and with the ongoing noise problem just outside our neighborhood. But the garden gave the house immense 'curb appeal', our Decorator had the interiors whipped into a seductive frenzy, and our Mayor...well...has worked for two decades, to give the town enough cachet to keep property values high, even in this Depression. Too, Kismet smiled upon us, in the form of two young surgeons, who had lived in problem neighborhoods, before. Living in slums until they'd completed residency, they had been assaulted with noise from neighbors' sound systems, too. In order to get much-needed sleep, they had developed an acoustic isolation chamber disguised as a curtained bed. Amazingly similar to what our Decorator had done for our windows, but isolated on all sides, the structure sits on several inches of special foam. So there's no chance of infrasonic vibrations making their way up from the ground. GENIUS! Those whose accounting is more optimistic than mine would say we made a couple hundred grand. I'd say we just broke even, once the move was factored-in. Anyway, we got the (rather high) asking price. Our friends who had moved out here ahead of us found a distressed estate home for us, up the mountain from them. Too artsy-craftsy-early-nineties-lodge-look for me. But our decorator is bringing the house into the new Millennium with only a few tweaks, here and there. Anyway, we got a genuine estate, in one of the most desired neighborhoods in the Northwest, for only a bit more than we'd gotten for our spec-grade McMansion in Madison. Our friends out here also bought an "architecturally-important estate home" at a distressed price, and (once the decorator we share had worked his magic) have been getting offers that would advance their position by over a million. Hope that happens here. Nice as this is, I have my heart set on something smaller and more formal...French cut Limestone, with brick herringbone floors, to be specific. Back in Madison, the Clumping Bamboo we added is thriving, and the young surgeons have found an improved cultivar of variegated Arundo (Peppermint Stick) at Madison Lawn & Garden, to plug up the accoustic 'holes'. This is their first real home, and they are turning into gardening fiends! Wonderful! The CVS urns lynch-mob travesty got us thinking about giant urns for the ends of the pool. So our decorator had Hayles & Howe cast a couple of eight-footers from the parapet of a house in England. They arrived a month back, and we got to see them, newly-installed. Brought tears to my eyes....tears of joy, to see my garden looking so lovely. If the new owners allow the house to be photographed, maybe you'll see it in a magazine. I doubt it, though. Aside from the plantings and the decorating, it's still just a spec house. Based on what I planted that's looking great, here's a list of triumphs: Muskogee Crape Myrtle Peach Drift Rose (quite shade tolerant) Cherokee Rose Lady Banks Rose (all four forms...single white, double white, single yellow, double yellow...as well as the hybrid 'Fortunaiana') Dr. W. VanFleet Rose (the more vigorous parent of New Dawn) Southern Wood Fern Crocosmia Hymenocallis 'Sparkling Burgundy' Camellia Sasanqua Oops!...just opened the gates for my Trainer. Gotta go... Thanks, everybody, for those notes of encouragement!

what area are you in??