Question
Hi Sean, I have an area on the south side of my yard, next to the fence, that I'm struggling with. I used to have 2 huge trees but they were messy and dropping debris into our pool so we cut them down. The root system is enourmous so we cannot plant anything in the area, which is about 20'wide by 5'deep. There is a south facing fence along the area.

Currently we have this big area that looks right into the neighbors, I would like some privacy. I've been tossing around two ideas: 1)large containers with some sort of tree or shrub. 2)mount a couple of trellis on top of the fence and use containers to grow a vine.

I don't really care what it looks like from the ground up to about 4 feet....my primary interest is 4 feet up and over the fence line.

Thanks for any ideas you may have!

Answer
The trellis sounds like the safest way to go with the least maintenance and most immediate results. Keep in mind any pots will require irrigation far more than something planted in the ground. Are you sure you don't have access for a stump grinder to come in and remove the roots?

Good Luck