Privacy and Screening Plants
Screening is a height and density question before it is a plant question. The entries here are the ones in our nursery tall enough and full enough to block a sight line, mostly palms, larger yuccas and a few substantial shrubs. Nearly all of them are evergreen, which matters, because a deciduous screen stops working in the months you are most likely to be looking at a bare fence.
Read mature height and mature width together. A plant that reaches fifteen feet tall and four feet wide screens a narrow gap, not a run of fence, so a real screen usually means several plants set at roughly their finished width apart. That looks thin at planting and is still the right call. Growth rate varies widely across this group, and the slower growers are worth buying in the largest size you can move.
