How good garden design can increase the privacy of your garden
Do you feel uncomfortable, awkward, or unable to use your garden to its full potential because of a lack of privacy? Are you looking for ways to prevent unwanted eyes looking in from surrounding houses or passers-by? When consulting with clients, privacy is often a topic that comes up and it’s our job to provide cost effective landscaping solutions, along with good garden design, that works well for gardens of all shapes and sizes.
Here are just a few garden design ideas for privacy, that we regularly include:
1. Oversized plants in containers. Very large pots can be bought at different price points and facilitate the planting of rooting flowers and vegetation of taller heights and bigger foliage sizes. Containers can be cleverly positioned, grouped together, layered, and moved about in a garden to build lavishness, colour, texture, and privacy.
2. Planting hedges or trees along your boundaries. Where there is low-level, see-through fencing or walls, boundary lines and gaps can be covered by planting:
- fast growing species
- mature tall trees
- plants
- hedges
Once planted, the garden will gain natural character, dense cover and generous screening, which will increase over time as the vegetation establishes.
3. Canopies, pergolas, gazebos and awnings. These come in assorted colours, styles and materials and can be purchased to suit various budgets. If your current garden seating arrangement is over-looked by the neighbours, your privacy can be restored by positioning a pergola, or one of these other structures, overhead. They can provide a safe and secure enclosure, block direct views and offer protection from the weather.
4. Garden parasols and umbrellas. Easy to install in a garden, garden parasols and umbrellas come in various heights and dimensions. They can be purchased with a stand for either garden tables or freestanding with floor bases. They are easy to put up and take down and rotating large cantilever umbrellas, for example (in the right spot) can obscure peeping eyes from an entire patio space – in addition to offering a shady covering.
5. Screens. Available in a variety of prices, sizes, designs, and materials such as wood, metal, glass, and vinyl; when properly secured they can provide great privacy and a wonderful eye-catching feature for a garden. They should be of the right weight, correctly installed (to prevent them from falling over in windy conditions) and must be in line with height limits stipulated in planning law.
6. Trellis. A trellis can be added as a partition with the option of planting an arrangement of climbing plants and flowers to grow up it. Alternatively, it can be placed on top of a wall or fence to beautify a space and cut out your neighbour’s view into your garden.
7. Shade Sails. Easily fitted, shade sails come in many shapes, fabrics, and colours. They are an excellent, inexpensive shade to not only jazz up your garden, but more importantly prohibit anyone watching from windows above.
8. Build a summer house. If you have the finances and room in your garden, why not consider building a summer or out house? Structures of this type can provide privacy as well as adding value to your property. Depending on where it is placed, height restrictions will come into effect it should not be taller than two and a half meters if within two meters of a boundary line. If positioned at the back of the garden, there is scope to go higher.
If you would like to discuss how our garden design and landscaping services can help improve the privacy of your garden, book us in for a consultation today by giving us a call.
