What Kind of Shrub Works Best for Privacy Screening?

Evergreen Shrubs

• Widely adapted American arborvitae shrubs form dense walls of solid evergreen foliage in climate zones from Hawaii through Alaska. Varieties are available that grow 30 to 60 feet tall; dwarf selections stay under 6 feet high. Evergreen boxwood shrubs grow as high as 20 feet. Yews are slow-growing, widely adapted conifers that form solid evergreen walls as high as 60 feet. Varieties are available that stay under 12 feet high. Evergreen holly shrubs eventually form impenetrable screens. Laurels are fragrant. Gardeners grow evergreen shrubs as formal clipped hedges or natural bushes.

Flowering Evergreens

• Gardeners in low-frost regions enjoy choosing among evergreen flowering privacy shrubs. Gardenias display glossy, deep-green evergreen foliage on shrubs as high as 8 feet where adapted. Intensely fragrant white flowers adorn the plants in spring or summer. Oleanders are Mediterranean natives that quickly reach as high as 20 feet. Flowers in a range of color choices appear over a long season beginning in spring. Photina bushes produce brilliant red or orange new foliage on rounded shrubs as high 30 feet. Colorful berries follow clusters of small white spring flowers.

Flowering Deciduous Shrubs

• Shrub roses create hedges as high as 6 feet. Carefree Wonder, Iceberg and the Simplicity series provide summer privacy screening and colorful flowers. Spring-flowering Chinese and common lilacs sucker freely, creating dense summer privacy hedges that persist through summer. The European cranberry bush and nannyberry bush oth grow with dense, compact habits. Berries and brilliant fall foliage follow white spring or summer flowers. The nannyberry bush eventually reaches 30 feet high. The European cranberry bush reaches 6 feet high.

Thorny Shrubs

• Rosa rugosa forms dense, thorny hedges as high as 6 feet with fragrant, single or double flowers in various colors. Rosa sericea ptericantha produces uncommonly large, decorative thorns on a shrub 10 feet tall and 6 feet wide. Versatile Russian olives grow as shrubby trees or spiny deciduous hedges. Five-leaved aralia is dense and thorny, growing to 9 feet high. Pyracantha shrubs are for low-frost regions. Densely tangled, thorny branches support evergreen foliage, white summer flowers and bright orange or red berries on shrubs as high as 12 feet.