Hedge that will grow in the shade.

I have a spot where I want to grow a hedge.
It is deeply shaded, with an foot tall opaque fence immediately to the south and canopy trees overhead.

I would rather not have grow the hedge plants elsewhere until they top 6 feet, but I will if that is the only reasonable way.

I'm avoiding bamboo and willow.
I like them, but socially, planting them is kind of a big middle finger to one's neighbors.
My neighbor on that side is jerk, but antagonizing him doesn't help me out.

I may resort to a privacy screen/arbor of some kind, but a hedge is prefered.
I  really not picky, I just want more privacy than a 6 foot fence  will give me.

I will also be planting a hedgerow that gets half day sun.
That hedgerow already includes mulberry, blackcap raspberries, boxelder, black locust, catawba, and rose of sharon, all from transplanted volunteers.
I have also have red raspberries, and blackberries available for cuttings.
These and the black caps are easy to propagate, and they all grow long, but not so much vertically.

While I would love to get food from this hedgerow,  privacy is the goal, and biomass the only expected side benefit.
If I have to buy trees, conifers are looking pretty good, but I don't think they will thrive in the shade.

Any ideas you have will be appreciated.

Shade is hard for hedging. It grows through patch and weakly, at best, and won’t give good screening.

The plants that do well in our deep shade are holly and yew. They are exceptionally slow growing, but once established they will fill in and do what you need visually.

I like the pfaf database for this sort of question - you can put in your requirements (as few as possible to get more results) and it comes back with a list of plants you can try. I'm not sure what hardiness zone you're in William, since that will affect the results. I'd really like to try the plum yews here, but I think they need a bit more heat to get fruit than we get, and probably warmer winters than you will have, so far I'm yet to get a seed to germinate. I have found my blackcurrants fruit even in deep shade, although not as well as they would in sun.

Seconding Michael Cox on holly. I have a heavily shaded holly that fills nicely, and it acts like a fence too... holly isn't nice to try to walk through.

It does grow very slowly though.

I'm about 90% positive the hedges around all the Kleingartens in my club are Hornbeam:  https://pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Carpinus+betulus

Mine are in pretty deep shade and do fine.  The internet tells me the trees want to be large, but that they can be maintained as hedges as short as 1 meter.  We're required to keep ours about 1.5 meters, trim it at the prescribed times 2x/year (German obsessive rules - but in this case to protect the hedges during nesting season) and it stays nice-looking.

Oh, on the eastern edge of my garden, which gets much more sun, I planted Elaeagnus x ebbingei:  https://pfaf.org/user/plant.aspx?LatinName=Elaeagnus+x+ebbingei
which is a nitrogen fixer and in theory bears useful berries (though I haven't seen any yet).  I believe it's the only evergreen Elaeagnus.  It's much more scraggly-looking, though that could be because I never prune it.  One more shrub is showing up this month and then I will have completely blocked that annoying neighbor... muahahaha!

Yew does well in shade, and the red berries are edible (the rest of the plant is poisonous). It's slow growing however, so if you want to not wait forever you should get some decent sized plants from a nursery.

Similar to holly, Oregon Grape does well in shade and makes a nice hedge, and it has purple berries that make a fine melomel or jam. And oregon grape is decently fast growing (the "tall oregon grape", mahonia aquilifolium).

One conifer that does really well in shade is Western Red Cedar (thuja Plicata). It thrives in shade, so much so that there have been documented thuja Plicata seedlings in the forests of Idaho that grew in complete shade for 40 years before ever getting any direct sunlight. Additionally it take shearing well and can be shaped into your desired hedge shape. If left unshorn, however, it will grow into an absolutely huge tree over many decades.

Thanks for the feedback!
I do love me some PFAF!
The Plum Yew is a plant I learned of from there.
I 'm in US zone 6, so it might fruit here.
They are not available locally, so the price isn't quite right.

Oregon Grape has also been on my radar, and it has real promise as a source of income.
Because they are evergreen, they will have a little bit of edge in the winter when the overstory is bare.
I think I need them in my life.

The Yew has me kinda terrified, so I'll  them a pass.

The Hornbeam and Western Red Cedar  have me wanting more land!
Not a great fit this little spot, but very sexy...lol!

I think my solution is going to involve building something.
I love building stuff more than I like planting stuff, and I really like planting stuff!
Normally we are warned against planting trees and shrubs on a hugel, because of the settling.
I think a hugel that settles while the hedge on top it grows sounds pretty good.
I have a lot of chain link fence and t-posts, so I think a contained hugel topped with a hedge is in my future.
A  4 foot tall hugel that settles to 2 feet should help the hedge start out with more sun.

A friend of mine is growing clumping bamboo, and he says I should try it.
I think that it will be too slow!

Hey you plum yew heads, sheffields just got in a fresh batch of plum yew seeds: https://sheffields.com/seeds-for-sale/Podocarpus/macrophyllus////Maki///1117/Yew-Plum-Pine,-Southern-Yew/Yew-Plum-Pine,-Southern-Yew

Mum and Dad have a Pyracantha in full shade here in the UK. Similar to holly (evergreen and spiky with berries) but faster growing.

https://pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Pyracantha+coccinea