what to plant now for screening?

Hi all,

We used to have a very full garden of trees and shrubs. Very private. But since we have had to cut a lot of trees and shrubs due to damage and needing to install a new fence along our boundary, we are now overlooked by the neighbour. I'm attaching a photo to show the fence line we want to develop with hedging and/or trees.

The fence panels are 5 ft tall sitting on top of 2 x 1 ft gravel boards giving the overall height to the top of the bow 7ft. the panels are 6 ft wide and our garden is on a slope, the neighbours side of the garden is higher ground than ours.
I'm wanting to screen us from the neighbours upstairs windows and from them when they are on their decked balcony that you might be able to see in the back.
I was thinking of planting cherry laurel hedging, Ive seen plants I can buy that are almost 2m tall. In order to block the line of sight from their upstairs windows, I thought about planting some kind of upright tree such as flagpole cherry blossom. I need height with minimum spread so that the view from their upstairs windows to our garden is obscured as well as not creating too much shade in the only part of the garden that gets the sun in the summer evenings. This part of the fence and strip of the garden gets the sun all day except the mornings, its a south/ south-east facing garden. since the neighbours moved in two years ago they have chopped a lot of trees and tall shrubs down, so now above this fence is quite exposed to the wind coming over the fields behind, our previous neighbour had conifer hedging at the bottom of his garden. these have all been removed.

The garden is at the moment still very much work in progress with its 'renovation'. Can I plant flagpole cherry amidst the cherry laurel hedge? How tall does flagpole cherry blossom grow and how much spread, I have seen contradicting information from various websites, my head hurts.....

As an added note, I do like/prefer evergreen, which is why I considered cherry laurel, and to give the birds their nesting places and food back again.

 

Personally I wouldn't plant a Cherry laurel anywhere near the house , its not the nicest of shrubs bit of a thug and doesn't trim up to well either , Ideal for the bottom of the garden out of sight for screening .

They are quite a few plants that have a upright growth like amelancheir obelisk - taxus fastigiata - mahonia charity is a large fast growing shrub - sambuscus black towers or others sambucus are fast growers mine can easy put on 5ft in year. A cotinus royal purple would look nice or maybe a fruit tree or crab apple.

If you're feeling flush ££££ could just buy some pleached shrubs / trees

 

Thank you Perki,
I like the look of pleached trees too, but as I was looking up the maintenance of them, they either need to be grown a distance from the hedge to be able to trim/prune them from behind, or the neighbour needs to be on board to do it from their side.....our neighbours are not like that....so trying to look for something that wont encroach on their side for them to 'hack' like they did my bamboo culm that happened to stray on their side. :-(

I'll take a look at your other suggestions.

 

I like the look of Amelanchier oblisk. Is it dense enough for birds to nest?

I'm looking for tall hedging that is evergreen, and then in between a tall tree upright tree that will obscure the overlooking upstairs bedroom from the neighbours.