Hi everyone, I'm new here and to gardening in general!! :) My neighbours are a big help to me, giving me transplants and advice etc. The question I'd like your help with is regarding a privacy hedge in the front yard. We live on a busy road, and have minimal backyard space (since the previous owners put a garage in the MIDDLE of the backyard), and earlier this year, while having a yard sale, I said to my sister-in-law, "isn't it a shame we can't use our large front yard as a backyard?" She suggested I put in a cheap chainlink fence along the perimeter and plant privacy hedges on the road side of the fence and beautiful colourful gardens on the interior (for our enjoyment). It sounds like SUCH a good idea, but I'm having trouble googling pictures of how this would look. Our house is a backsplit, so it's only 1 level, and the hedge we would want to be 6' high or more, leaving about 6' of house visable. Does anyone have any ideas if this would look good, what type of (fastgrowing) hedges we should use etc. Thanks for all your advice!! Deanna
It would look great, plenty of houses in the UK have a hedge bordering the front garden. The only thing I would caution against is using something fast growing (eg Leylandii) - the trade off for the instant height would be the need to trim three or four times a year once the hedge is established to keep it in bounds and looking nice. If you can go for something a little slower growing, Yew, Taxus baccata, would look good.
