Landscaping Ideas for Border Privacy in Backyards

Broadleaf Evergreens

• Fraser photinia (Photinia x fraseri) is a broadleaf evergreen shrub for zones 7 through 9, capable of reaching 15 feet high. Its evergreen nature makes it suitable as a screen along a backyard border. Grow it in full sun to partial shade. It tolerates full-shade sites, but produces fewer flowers and suffers from diseases such as leaf spot in such situations, warns the Missouri Botanical Garden. Longstalk holly (Ilex pedunculosa) easily grows tall enough to function as a backyard screen along your acreage’s edges. It grows to 20 feet on average into zone 5. Longstalk holly takes its name from the long stalks upon which the red berries develop on the female specimens.

Needled Evergreens

• Anglojap yew (Taxus x media) is a hybrid cross that produced a large shrub/small tree up to 20 feet high. This needled evergreen is dark-green, doing best in slightly acidic, damp areas between zones 4 and 7. It is available in cultivars such as Bean Pole and Brownii, both tall enough to serve as privacy screens. Add some color to your borders with Sunkist, an American arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis) cultivar that possesses yellow foliage. The needles turn orange-yellow in winters. Use Sunkist, which grows between 6 and 10 feet, for privacy between zones 2 and 7. It has great tolerance for cold winters.

Deciduous Shrubs

• Obscure your backyard from viewers with the Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus), a native of Asia that grows with a vase-like form to 12 feet tall. Suitable for urban backyard borders, the deciduous shrub handles full sun best, generating more of its large flowers than if located in shade. Rose of Sharon works as a screen in zones 5 through 8. The cold-hardy red twig dogwood (Cornus sericea) grows to 10 feet in zones 3 through 7 featuring bright-red, winter stems and deciduous leaves that turn purple-red in fall. Red twig dogwood gives you privacy. Its white flowers and white-blue berries are added benefits.

Ornamental Grasses

• Its foliage changes from green to gold-yellow after the first frost, giving the ornamental grass November Sunset its name. A type of eulalia (Miscanthus sinensis), this grass grows tall enough, up to 8 feet high, with thick enough clumps that afford privacy along a backyard border. November Sunset is appropriate for zones 5 through 9. Employ giant miscanthus (Miscanthus floridulus) along borders in zones 6 to 9 for privacy. It grows to 12 feet, doing well in wet areas and in full sunshine. Giant miscanthus takes on a purple color in fall before going to tan for the winter.