On 09/10/2013 15:18, echinosum wrote:

Janet;993384 Wrote:
Looks like pleached hornbeams.Someone is making a very labour intensive

tall, narrow privacy screen between the road and the house.

Hornbeams are a tree not a shrub.

Janet
There isn't quite enough resolution on the photos to make out the
leaves, but we can see that they are roughly almond shaped with a
toothed or irregular edge, so hornbeam is probably a good guess,
especially since it is well known for this kind of work.

Hornbeam is not the only tree than can be trained in this manner.
'Pleaching - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia'
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleaching) It is common to pleach mulberry
in the mediterranean. But a key point is that it is a lot of work.
Also it isn't much of a screen in the half of the year with no leaves.

The quickest and most reliable kind of screen is made of brick or wood
or the like, also takes up very little space. Plants can then be put in
front of it to decorate it.

You can also get a year-round screen just by planting a typical
evergreen hedge, but you will have to maintain it. The trouble with
really fast growing hedges is that they are more work to maintain in the
longer runs. The trouble with sensible hedges is that they take a few
years to get to the height you like. Some of the evergreen berberis are
some of the easiest hedges, and occupying relatively little space as
hedges go. Bamboo is another screen if you choose an evergreen kind,
and is one of the few hedges that reaches a natural maximum height of
its own accord. However it takes a few years to get there; is
relatively expensive as a plant; and may need in-ground infrastructure
to prevent it becoming invasive.

You could try Miscanthus, not as expensive as bamboo dies off each
winter but regrows in the spring, the dead stems will still form a screen
Also Post and rail trellis with climbing roses, will give you a screen
for half the year.