In reply to Klara ) who wrote this in
,

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.

I, Marvo, say :

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.

Thanks, Marvo! It might be the right sort of shape, but the whole view
from their large bay window is of that hedge, and I would be worried
that with those dark leaves cotinus would look like a permanent black
cloud on the horizon!

--
Klara, Gatwick basin