In reply to Klara ) who wrote this in
, I, Marvo, say :

Our daughter's new house is some 2 feet above the pavement; the front
lawn starts atop a stone retaining wall. There is a strip of flower
bed on top of the wall, and then a lawn (about 4-5 m) to the house.
The idea would be to replace this bed with a sort of hedge, or maybe
more of a border, that would act as a kind of lace curtain. Obviously
at night one would have to draw the curtains, but she would like to
be able to leave them open during the day.

The plants/bushes would need to be evergreen (as they are more
necessary in the winter than in the summer), would have to grow to a
height of some 4-5 feet and be relatively self-supporting, and they
need to be happy in Surrey clay on a very dry slope. And it's a very
pretty street, so they should be more attractive and welcoming than
impervious. (Oh, and daughter is a complete newcomer to gardening,
so they can't be too difficult either.)

I think the way to go might be to have a range of plants that go well
together, as in a border - but I just can't picture what these might
be, and would be grateful for suggestions!

If it doesn't want to look too "hedgey", a cotinus cogyria (the spelling is
a guess) is a nice looker and after a short while they get very thick, with
deep red-black leaves. It could have something else on the house side to
give a better curtaining effect, like maybe a Japonica bush (not sure of the
variety) which will flower nicely in summer yet be a good cover in winter.
I've used these before and they are easy (otherwise they wouldn't work for
me), and I have a friend living on Surrey clay too who has a bloomer of a
specimen, gets hardly any light at all and is about four feet high. Needs no
watering or anything.