how to hide a hedge?

[GolightlyMrsGolightly]

well not hide it...

It's a 10 foot high very old, very healthy, privet hedge all along the side of our garden. But it is a bit overwhelming all that greenery.

What can I plant or what tricks can I use to break it up a bit? There's a flower border about 1.2 m wide in front of it.

Turn it into a cloud hedge?

Great idea. Not my hedge unfortunately otherwise I think it would be much shorter....

You could plant some clematis to grow up and through it a bit? If you chose those from Group 3 or herbaceous clematis, you could prune most of it back each year so it would never overwhelm the hedge (as the hedge isn't yours). There are also some evergreen clematis if you think your neighbour wouldn't mind you growing things, and some flower in winter so you could choose a variety and have interest all year.

If that's not your thing, some tall grasses in yellows/beiges or bluish greens could break up the density, and something like verbena bonariensis would add some long lasting summer colour.

So if i grew a clematis would that come back after a hedge trim? It gets trimmed 3 times a year.

I think the idea of grasses and verbena and maybe gaura. Tall floaty things. At the moment the hedge is very very present in the garden....we haven't been in long and are going to have building work done so I haven't done much to the garden.

If you trim your hedge three times a year you will struggle to find clematis that are happy to be pruned at the same time regardless of group. If you're really not that keen on the hedge, and your bed is quite deep at 1.2 m, you could put trellis in front of the hedge, leaving a gap to get behind for hedge trimming, and then plant climbers and other things.