[ConfusedGardener]

I'm looking for a fast growing bushes or small trees that could be used as a screen. In some areas I'd need them to be around 5-6 feet, and others around 8-10 feet tall would be ideal. They'd have to be happy in partial shade (mostly), and low maintenance/cost would be a bonus. Evergreens would be good, but I'd also be interested in bushes that don't have too dense foliage like many of the conifer bushes.

What would you recommend?

[arugula]

Reading your requirements, I must say bamboo jumped to mind. You need to be wary with it though, as there are varieties which run quite wild and can be invasive, whilst there are other less invasive clumping varieties. This link will give some useful information.

[Stree]

Privet

[mumofstig]

Forsythia -  for the spring colour, and it grows pretty quickly as well. Any young branches also root very easily just poked into the ground, so you could thicken your planting up easily.

[Stree]

Thats right about the fuchsia, I had a hardy fuchsia bush, inherited it with the last house. It was a bush, about 4 feet by 2 feet at the base and pruned hard every fall or spring it would put on about 4 to 5 feet of growth a season.
I once pruned it in fall and it was mainly long whippy stems about 3 feet long( all cut to fit in sacks) and these ended up being laid on a spare patch of soil and covered with an old piece of carpet. This was a pile of stuff getting ready for a trip to to the tip.
One reason or another it ended up getting  left until next spring and when I got round to shifting it all the fuchsia stems had healthy roots developed and in bud!.
Right, had a strip of poor soil alongside the house, nothing would grow in it except sedum and weeds, stuck the stems in there and by mid summer had a 35 feet hedge 4 to 5 foot tall and thick enough so you could not see the wall behind it. Pruned to about a foot next spring and it grew again......No maintenance and long season flowering...So yes, it makes a good hedge.

[mumofstig]

Just to clarify, I was talking about Forsythia although I agree with what Stree has said about the hardy fuchsias 

[Stree]

Ahhhh So you were.


I may blush now.

[bravemurphy]

I needed the same and got bamboo, however i have contained it with concrete slabs dug a foot into the ground and six inches above all the way around it like i supose a sunken bed and havent had any probs.

The bonus is i will be able to get some canes off it this year too 

[ConfusedGardener]

Thanks for all the great suggestions. Please keep them coming. I don't want the garden to look like a monoculture!

I especially like the idea of bamboo since we already have a clump growing at the other end of our land, so I'm thinking I could break some of it up and transplant it to where it's needed.

I know bamboo is tough, but would this be a bad time to divide and transplant some of it?

[PembsPanther]

Thats right about the fuchsia, I had a hardy fuchsia bush, inherited it with the last house. It was a bush, about 4 feet by 2 feet at the base and pruned hard every fall or spring it would put on about 4 to 5 feet of growth a season.
I once pruned it in fall and it was mainly long whippy stems about 3 feet long( all cut to fit in sacks) and these ended up being laid on a spare patch of soil and covered with an old piece of carpet. This was a pile of stuff getting ready for a trip to to the tip.
One reason or another it ended up getting  left until next spring and when I got round to shifting it all the fuchsia stems had healthy roots developed and in bud!.
Right, had a strip of poor soil alongside the house, nothing would grow in it except sedum and weeds, stuck the stems in there and by mid summer had a 35 feet hedge 4 to 5 foot tall and thick enough so you could not see the wall behind it. Pruned to about a foot next spring and it grew again......No maintenance and long season flowering...So yes, it makes a good hedge.

I have 4 of these in total, bigger though in full glory they can reach 6-8 foot high and easily just as wide, as you every year they got chopped down to virtually nothing then they come back with avengance! I hate them to be honest, they are in summer literally FULL of bees, wasps love them as well you can hear the whole bush buzzing as you walk passed them.

Chris

[ConfusedGardener]

It sounds like fuchsia is easy to propagate, and attracting lots of insects is a bonus. I will be looking for someone with fuchsia to remove some cuttings