In winter, our lawn gets so that you feel you are sinking into it when
you walk on it because it's so wet.

our last house was like this and we grew loads of dog woods - may not sound
ideal for privacy but some grow quite high and the twigs are so dense that
they still cover in winter. Also you can do a large area cheaply - there was
a wild thicket of teh stuff near our house, I just used to cut a load of
sticks off this each autumn, after the leaves had dropped, and stuck them
into our boggy clay. Over half would take and be growing well by spring.
Hayley