More on the Merits (or Not) of the Hedge

Imagine my surprise when I opened your magazine and found a photo of my frontyard displayed in the piece called “Life in the Green Room” (by Christina Dalton, Home Design Issue, May 22). It is interesting that you selected my home in Echo Park, since what appears to be a hedge is actually cascading jasmine. I planted it as a way to protect a distinctive brick wall from taggers. Far from being the “leafy bulwark” you suggest, my garden has initiated many friendly conversations with neighbors over the years.

I think the decision to hedge or not to hedge is only one small aspect of the privacy versus community issue. I’m a Realtor and interior designer by training, and my stock-in-trade are houses and what people do to them. In my estimation, the desire to spin your own world is not necessarily an unfriendly gesture. Whether it’s with a hedge or overactive foliage, greening-up one’s home is not any more unneighborly than building an overscaled house in a modest neighborhood, surrounding your property with an unsightly chain-link fence or taking a bungalow and maligning it with stucco.

Judy Oroshnik

Los Angeles