Question
We bought our home in northern Ohio a few months ago and we have a large picture window in the kitchen facing north.  Unfortunatley the view is of my neighbors tall ugly blue house. Our property extends about 10' to theirs.  What can I do to get near instant privacy? Hope you can help.
Ruth  

Answer
The quickest solution is a fence, curtains, or paying the neighbor to paint his house...but I think you probably are thinking plants.  I once bought some trees for my neighbor so he could plant them on HIS side of the fence.  It might work.

Screening the neighbors without destroying your view is not an easy thing to do.

For an evergreen hedge ("quick" is a relative term), three evergreens come to mind - Arborvitae, Japanese Yew, & Chamaecyparis.  If you have animals that graze (deer/horses), avoid the Yew, as it is toxic to eat, but wow, it looks great as a large clipped hedge.

If the problem is larger than, say, 15 feet tall, its time to bring out the "big guns", and plant a tree.

Some good, narrow, screening trees for your area are...

Decidous: Birch, Aspen, Poplar (varieties: Theve's,Tower, Lompardy). Watch the tags -get narrow varieties - the local nursery can help here.  But watch out - they WILL get 50+ tall in a few short decades.

Evergreen: Columnar Juniper, or the Arborvitae (unclipped)

Hope it helps with the neighbor problem.