Top Ways To Screen Your Garden

Possibly the number one requirement for most people planning their garden is to ensure at least some privacy from neighbours and hide unwanted views. This might just be a little shelter around a seating area to duck down behind, full boundary screening, or blocking out an unwanted view. Here, Ruth Marshall, CEO of award winning designers CGLA, shares her top ways for screening your garden.

Hard Landscaping Ideas

Putting up a fence, trellis or other hard landscaped solution can be a quick and easy way to create some privacy. A pergola can be a great way to give you a private space for a hot tub or seating area where there are higher overlooking windows, and slatted panel fencing or vertical fins an attractive and simple way to create a barrier perhaps to the side of a patio on your boundary with a neighbour. There are however restrictions on how high you can raise a fence on a boundary (typically 2m) and pergolas and other structures may need to be pulled away from the boundary to meet with local planning conditions.

We talk about some tree forms that will give a similar overhead screening effect in one of our other insight pieces here – anything that creates shade also creates some screening.

Espalier Trees

Espaliers, or “hedge on a stick” shaped trees are trained in the nurseries to have a clear stem (usually about 2m tall) and a rectangular panel of branches on top, typically around 1.2m square. There are many varieties of trees that are commercially grown as espaliers, a few evergreen and more deciduous, and most can be purchased for £150-£450 plus VAT each, although larger and more mature specimens can cost a fair bit more than that.

Espaliers with a clear stem as in the images above (which are gorgeous Liquidambar trees) are the perfect height to screen above a standard height fence, and do typically give pretty good coverage from upper windows of neighbouring properties, depending of course on the site geometry. We give more examples of those species commonly available as espalier forms in our blog here, including reasons why we typically do not recommend some of the species most commonly used!

Full panel espaliers (ie without a clear stem, and featuring branches all the way down to the ground), are a great option if there is no fencing or it is lower. In the example below the client had poor quality and low fencing and wanted a full screen from the neighbour and the football stadium beyond (!). We used Eleagnus panels (shown laid out before final planting and clipping) which certainly do the job!

Espaliers are ideal on direct boundaries with neighbours, and where you need heights up to 4m but probably do not want something that grows beyond that- espalier trees are typically kept clipped to that height and are therefore ideal for these circumstances.

Magnificent Box Heads

Box head trees combine some of the best facets of espaliers and more substantial trees. Ideal for formal avenues and impressive boundaries, these forms (almost literally a box shape on a clear stem) are grand trees in themselves, perfect for avenues and formal gardens but also can create exceptional screening.

Other Trees For Screening

Where space is less of an issue, particularly on rear boundaries or in larger plots, you have more tree options to create privacy for your garden. Screening does not have to all be evergreen- I am a great fan of the “net curtain effect” that deciduous trees create even in winter, with the branch network lightly obscuring more distant houses at that time and letting in more light too.

Silver birch (Betula utilis) is a great option for this as skinny specimens can be brought in quite cheaply at 4-5 metres tall and planted as a group they will give a delightful effect. Their gorgeous white stems look very architectural, (note different varieties have different bark colour and consistency) and the lightness of form means they can be planted within the garden space not just on a boundary, allowing for more flexibility on the screening.

In more natural spaces, a mixed planting of trees can be highly effective- in this example the massed planting loses the boundary (behind the covered seating) and blends the garden space with existing larger trees beyond. Here we used a mix of very large Mullberries for structure and fast growing willow species further back.

Hedging

Hedging can be used to great effect to screen a boundary, and (particularly if you are patient) this can be the most cost-effective way to do this. There are many wonderful varieties of hedges, but the most cost effective and swift growing evergreen hedging is Laurel (Prunus Laurocerasus) which you can bring in at almost any size to suit your budget, and this can certainly make 5m or so in height, although it will take up a fair bit of garden space to get this tall. See Hedges Direct for current pricing and a handy calculator for how many plants you might need. There are plenty of other varieties of hedging that give different effects and can provide more colour, spiky security or more formal settings, and we will discuss more of these in detail in future articles. Bear in mind that hedging need not be used as a simple single line, and fantastic effects can be achieved with double rows or blocks of hedging too!

Summary

Screening for your garden is perhaps the most important factor in making it feel like private space and a haven for entertaining. Hard landscaping features can provide some of this, but for greater height, variety and elegance, a mix of trees and hedging are often the best options. The choices are almost endless, with different colours in the leaves, flowers, fruits and stems, as well as a delightful range of forms and shapes to choose from. This is likely to be one of the most significant opportunities to transform your space and is worth planning carefully. The largest specimens are most cost effectively available in the winter season (between November and March) so planning the design and installation before the end of the summer is ideal.

If you want to find out more then follow our G&T (Garden Guides & Tree Talk) on social media or talk to one of the team about your privacy challenges and how we can help you screen from neighbours and unwanted views.

CGLA are an award winning team of Garden Designers, Landscape Architects, Landscapers and Garden Maintenance Operatives working in Buckinghamshire, London and the South East, as well as on prestigious design projects across the UK and abroad. We are currently working in Oman, Jersey and France, and welcome enquires for design, landscaping or garden maintenance. Contact us here