Cherry Laurel advice needed please!

I have a relatively narrow garden with a 5 ft fence around it. In certain areas I'd like to have a bit more privacy so when sitting on the patio etc, neighbours can't see right over. I had thought planting 2-3 cherry laurels a couple of foot apart and letting them grow to around 6 ft and tryi g to keep them trimmed so they don't come out too far into the garden space but still have height.
Is this possible or will they grow out too much?

Thanks in advance for any replies!

 

I would plant a hedge that was narrower than Cherry Laurel - which is a thug. Also, when you cut Laurel (with hedge trimmer) the leaves, being big, go brown at the cut edges. If you cut it by "pruning" branches with secateurs that avoids the issue, but its a lot more work (although not really if you only have a couple of plants).

I like a "smart, formal, dead straight, geometric" hedge, but that might not be the look you want?

I would plant Thuja plicata atrovirens (the variety is important, otherwise you might just get seed-grown Western Red Cedar and the plants will be a bit Heinz-57)

Its a bit like Leylandii <spit> except that it grows quite quickly but not 3 feet a year (which is the bit that makes keeping a Leylandii hedge troublesome to maintain, 'coz it carries on wanting to grow 3 feet a year and doesn't know it is supposed to stop doing that once it gets to 6' ), the Thuja cuts to a very nice formal hedge, and is way way faster than Yew.

Other evergreen hedges available ... some of them flowering if you fancy that (although I am thinking of things like Escalonia which is basically a scruffy looking hedge, with a Wow couple of weeks a year when it flowers.