24
10ft tall all down the driveway, so the potential new neighbors can't sit there and creep on me on their porch while i'm watering my plants in the drive, and as a bonus it'll keep their tree's stupid leaves in their yard where they belong
you can't even say i'm becoming a suburbanite, the town i live in is rural 
But they're leaves from THEIR trees! why's it have to be my fault for being, like, down wind of them
What do you mean, their trees? Trees belong to everyone and to themselves. You benefit from the shade and the oxygen, they beautify your life.
Don't worry so much about imaginary concepts like property and fault. Plants don't care about property lines. Maybe plant some more trees and then they can drop leaves on some ground you don't consider yours.
The trees are just living. Does your HOA make you clean up or something? Idk where you live so I can't recommend specific species, but you could totally just replace your lawn with cool native plants and just stop worrying about where leaves are and aren't.
the shade actively denies my container plants like 4 hours of sunlight