Hi everyone - Thanks for the responses, much appreciated! karinl - About the shrubs...we couldn't bring ourselves to tear out more shrubs. There were six pine, three bradford pear and four wax myrtles that were removed from the front. Two tree's fell on the center bed and bed to the right under the maple taking out 10 camelia's in shrub form that had been here for 13 years according to the neighbor..we've only been here 1 1/2 years. The shrubs are 2-3' from the foundation and the tree in the alcove is around 10'. The holly's have been cut back and boxwood trimmed up..looks much better now. The cyclone is definitely an eyesore and we've been living with it for two months now but there were many tree's in the back along with overgrown azalea's, holly's and some mystery shrubs. We had someone with a backhoe come in and dig everything up...we should have our privacy back in a few weeks. I found some nice Little Gems 10-12' and ligustrums are 5' so we'll have a good start. About the wall, we won't be choosing any SRW block and are leaning towards brick or brick/stucco. I think we'll end up shortening the sides around 10' and just grade the area since it's not that bad. I have two masons coming this week to provide a quote and I've already got pricing on the brick so we'll see!

The smaller sedum are nice and soapwort... do you mind plants that would hang/trail? Perhaps Black-eyed Susan "Vine" (I think I have the Latin for that one listed on my trade list to clarify better), morning glories (especially Japanese MG's and MGs could be planted at the base of the wall and climb up - plus they can self-sow and in your climate, you stand a really good chance of them being "extended" annuals), ivy (those that tolerate full sun) always look awesome against/on stone walls in my opinion... I know there's a "recipe" for taking existing moss and making it into a "paste" and "painting" it on (hrmm reminds me of a Chia pet hehe) and you could likely find a moss that grooved on full sun... Miniature luffa has a delicate vine and much smaller fruits than standard luffa and has dainty little yellow blooms.... I wonder what plant "forms" you prefer though and what colours - foliage and/or blooms... that would help to narrow down some choice selections for you. Hopefully you can avoid using chicken wire and get things in place without it... it can be a pain to get out once plants are established....

For a picture of our back yard, I think I will have to wait until the wall is constructed to actually get anything that would be useful to this thread. The link I posted in my follow-up is the closest I can come to for now. In that example picture, I posted, our yard would be on the other side of the trees and our neighbor would be the one seeing the wall. As far as the height of the Emeralds, I read that they mature to a height of 8-12' which I thought would be fine since we are sitting up a little higher anyway. I like the Green Giants...but as you said they can get maybe too big for what I had in mind here (10-15' would be ideal for me) and from the little bit I know about them, the GG seem to require a little more maintenance than the Emeralds to keep them in check. Also, do the Emeralds grow as fast as GG but just not as tall? Thanks again!

Sorry for the delay in answering - major computer problems. Looking at the picture, what you may want is 3 or 4 more small trees, so you get some high privacy. Then you can fill in underneath with some interesting shrubs. I'm not a big fan of arbor vitae - sometimes it seems like it's the state shrub of NJ - but even if I were, I think that 75 feet of it would feel like a prison. And it's really boring. I am also not a big fan of everything being completely balanced, with two hydrangeas on the left and two hydrangeas on the right, and so on.There are so many beautiful trees and shrubs; why should my choice be restricted to those that balance? What if one of the hydrangeas died? If it were my yard, I would look at Serviceberry (amelanchier laevis or arborea; a small native tree), one of the bigger viburnums, native or otherwise, fringetree (there are many more small trees, none of which I can remember at this moment) and for the shrubs, well, the choices are endless. If you've got kids, maybe you can stick in a pussy willow, or even if you don't have kids - it's one of my favorites. I think that's too much sun for a dogwood or redbud, but the people in the Tree forum here may have other opinions. Four feet widthwise is not a lot of room for something that will hopefully live for many years; you don't want to squeeze them lengthwise as well. Speaking from experience - please don't plant any tree with the expectation of pruning to keep it in bounds: that way lies madness. There is enough pruning with shrubs that you don't need to add on pruning your trees. Also, trees can be unforgiving if not pruned correctly; a forsythia will bounce back - a tree may not. If the low branches of a small tree will be in your way, you may want to get trees that get slightly bigger, or get some columnar trees. You got some real work ahead of you, but it will be great when it's done - have fun with it.