Bushes for Screening

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It sounds like your garden is a bit more formal in style than your neighbor’s and that you are looking for something evergreen.

Here are some possibilities. If you are interested in a formal hedge, yew (Taxus) is handsome and can be clipped hard, which is great if you don’t want something too wide. It has fine-textured, dark green needles. I wouldn’t recommend this for someone living where horses or goats might graze as it is toxic to them. However, it sounds like you live in the city, so that’s unlikely. Emerald cedar (Thuja occidentalis ‘Smaragd’) makes an excellent hedge as well. It’s foliage is yellower than that of yew. It is generally much less expensive than yew and is naturally narrow in width. Or you can branch out into other, more interesting shrubs, such as the fall-fragrant sweet olive (Osmanthus heterophyllus), strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo ‘Compacta’) or California wax myrtle (Myrica californica).