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

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!

That's the trouble with blokes, so I'm told. They like unusual things like
cotinus, cacti, etc. Women like more trad plants which blokes might find
boring :-)

Is this just me, I wonder?

My favourite plants, other than cacti, include fushcia (the bush sort),
buddliea, cotinus cog, and most gaudy things or plants with unusual and
bright colouring. But then I'm at least partially insane.