w/o a pic.. its hard to conceptualize..

can you do vine on the fence .... like clematis???

ken

This is a crude rendering of my project. The plants and hardscape are placeholders. The plan is to grow climbing hydrangea in the back fence and other plants in the 3ft space. Since it's a townhouse, I'm apprehensive about vines in the shared fences. But I do love clematis :-)

In the 1 ft spaces, I'm thinking a groundcover, Angelina sedum, but I think it would be nice to break that up with other plants.

I don't know many shrubs that are so narrow that they would take up only about 1 foot width, and still get -- what? maybe 4 to 5 feet tall?

Some that come to mind that are very upright are Euonymus 'Greenspire', Buxus sempervirens 'Dee Runk', and Ilex (Holly) 'Castle Spire'. But even these may require some pruning.

Or you could try to espalier something on the fence, such as a very hardy Camellia sasanqua or japonica... something that won't grow thru the fence and infringe on your neighbor's space. These will require regular pruning and training, but could be really nice with evergreen foliage AND flowers and they grow slowly enough that they should be easy to maintain.

seems like a perfect area for a rock garden style of planting. why not mix different sedums interspersed with some summer annuals and interesting rocks/stones?
i grow 'angelina', 'blue spruce', 'voodoo' and 'ogon' sedums in a similar setting. they are all fully hardy and evergreen here and, although mine are not in shade, they do fine with about 3-4 hours of sun.
those, along with some other low growers like creeping phlox, veronica 'georgia blue', etc. make a colorful bed.

Espalier is a very nice look. Here is an apple tree I did up.
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Good luck with your decision and show us pics when you complete.
flora