I've got a long, south-facing fence in full sun in my front yard that I'd like to plant with a mixed shrub border to liven up my front yard and also screen some commercial views a couple blocks to the north. It's a house that was built in the '40s and I was thinking a border with a mix of old-fashioned, fast-growing shrubs would fit the architecture and the neighborhood. I have more edgy plantings near the house, in the back yard and on a very large side yard, and could extend the border into the lawn over the years with more newer plantings, but like the idea of the old standards forming a backdrop.

At the far end of the 45-foot border is a mature Velvet Cloak Smoketree, and the fence is a 4-foot traditional basketweave wooden fence. Here's what I'm considering for the border, the kind my grandparents might have planted:

Lynwood forsythia, golden elder, purple leaf sandcherry, moonglow juniper, korean spice viburnum, althea 'minerva,' some kind of ninebark, traditional lilac for the back row, though that might be more than will fit. (I don't intend to plant too crowded, rather for mature sizes.) In front, some medium-height spirea, old gold juniper, blue rug juniper, manhattan euonymous, some shrubby roses, maybe some rosy glow barberry bushes and some low cranberry bushes, maybe a dwarf blue arctic willow.

There isn't room to do a lot of repetition, except for some of the lower front shrubs. My concern is it might look too hodge-podgy, but I also kind of like that possibility. I'm in Zone 5A a couple miles west of Denver.

Thoughts?