Muffling the Prospect Expressway

71 Ocean Parkway, seen from across the Sharkway., by Sharon Frost.

Say you're lucky enough to have outdoor space...but it faces a major road like the Prospect Expressway. What do you do make the space more enjoyable and less noisy? There's a great discussion going on at the Browstoner Forum about how to combat the noise of cars, and a couple of comments mention the advantages of dense shrubs. BrooklynGreene has a particularly helpful suggestion about why you shouldn't just create one wall of protection:

You should also think about any surfaces that bounce sound back. Depending on the house and yard, you may want to try growing Virginia creeper on walls and set in a "naturalist" array of shrubs and trees.