super ... the potential problems would have been ... if you wanted another duplicate ... and that would not really be possible.. except for rooting your own ... to insure such ... take the time to cruise thru a page or two of posts in this forum ... and see what can be done with conifers ... with this caveat ... plants are planted .... to hide the foundation .. NOT ON THE FOUNDATION ... and your prior owner planted them according to the size they were at sale.. with no concept that the little chuckers would grow ... so if and when you get tired of shearing them into submission ... consider reworking the whole bed ... in relation to future growth ... and do search out more than the usual suspects the bigboxstore offers ... ken

With Austins, it's very much a matter of climate, like phyllissteen said. So many of the Austin roses are mild mannered shrubs in the UK, but bring them to the southern US or California (or anywhere with more sun the Britain!), with the longer, hotter summers, and you get giant climbers and/or octopus arms. Also, some roses respond to being tied to a support by throwing longer canes, whereas if they are grown free-standing they can support themselves just fine. And I'm convinced some roses are just bipolar... If you search through older posts about Austins in California, you'll find that one of the most common questions is which Austins DON'T run away and grow into huge monsters.

Sometimes resurrected threads are helpful. We have a house that family is in that we will move back to. I've considered an 8 ft fence for screening an ugly property. The lot behind has 4 acres and it is a bit of a family compound. Rather nice but they use the part of their yard that butts ours as somewhat of a trash bin. They have been there for a long time and the previous owners of our house deforested the backyard - so I don't blame them. We currently have a 4 ft chain link - which is to say nothing visual blocking. The town probably would allow 6+2 and HOA probably would allow since this backyard property is not in the HOA and it would not be visible from the street and barely visible by the one neighbor. One solution to fence height rules is decorative walls that are not continuous - "not a fence". For now I have planted a lot but there is tall trees on the 4 acre property which block a lot of sun so the screenings planted may not be enough in our 4-5 year time line. It is the worst right now as the weather is nice but the trees aren't leaved out yet. We are planning on adding windows and probable extension back there with lots of windows so it wll matter more than current situation. On our current house, we have a section of 8 ft that was done for security. It is the one entry point to backyard that wasn't visible to neighbors (and wasn't through a neighbors yard). Of course a criminal could climb it but it certainly would slow them down. The gate has a deadbolt So sometimes height can be helpful - or at least can feel like it is helpful....

I like Christopher’s general idea of having a frame of grass and how to set things up now for planting in the fall. I have a hill that I planted to two types of tall perennials, the old fashioned orange daylilies that spread (Hemerocallis fulva) and an aggressive spreader, Centaurea dealbata. I also installed buried edging to discourage grass from growing into the bed. I planted right through the layer of woodchips I had put down after killing the grass. You could keep it simple and just have a tall meadow of perennials. I weed my hill twice a year and every couple years add mulch while the perennials are dormant in winter. I wanted some taller plants as well, so added a Kousa dogwood and some mid-height shrubs, including a panicled hydrangea; hydrangea Annabelle where the tree would give it shade in the afternoon; some chartreuse folliaged spirea, a few Spiraea ’Ogon’; and several Caryopteris. Mine is an area that isn’t easy to see in winter, but you might consider adding some evergreens if you want winter interest. I do not know if any of the plants I mentioned will work for you since I don’t know where you are. my location and zone are part of my name.