Ways to Screen Overlooking Neighbours

When you’re designing your garden, it can be tempting to just look at the here and now, and only bear the next couple of years in mind. One of the main benefits of using a garden design company is that we’re used to looking at how a garden will age to make sure you get the very best out of it for as many years as possible. As part of this, one major consideration is how to create additional privacy. Many urban or suburban gardens are heavily overlooked and if you really want to enjoy that hot tub or your sunbathing, you want to know you’re not centre stage for your neighbours.

When we assess the potential of a garden design, we will look at the structure of the garden and what we have to ‘play with’, we’ll factor in how the flora and fauna will grow, and we’ll always look at the dynamic of the family using the garden too.

Here are a few ways we’ll get creative to give you more of a private haven when you want to escape the world – and all without offending your neighbours…

Digging Down

If you’re looking at making significant changes to your garden, you’ll assess the lay of the land and the overall structure of it. These usually set the limits on what you can or can’t do with your outdoor space, but if you’re happy with some additional restructuring, this opens up the potential to add a significant amount of privacy.

There will often be an ‘eyeline’ which the fencing or visual boundaries in the garden may not be able to hide. By digging downwards, you’re cleverly lowering aspects of your garden out of sight. This works particularly well for seating areas where you’d prefer a more private setting, or for sinking hot tubs or pools into so you’re not conscious about neighbouring spectators.

Pleasant Planting

Getting creative with your plants and trees is the perfect way to add a gorgeous aesthetic to your garden which others may not realise is for additional privacy. Adding pleach trees to the edge of your garden makes a fantastic boundary which adds height to fencing or hedges. Pleach trees are tall, flat trees which have thin stems so take up minimal garden space, but once established, they fill out to form a lovely full hedge at the top of your fencing without feeling that they’re invading a neighbours view.

Planting trees strategically will help too. If you stand in a spot where you’d like privacy, take a look around at where you’re particularly overlooked. If there are windows in certain properties which look straight into parts of your garden, planting trees directly in that line of sight will offer protection in future once they’ve grown. You’ll need to take into account how quickly the species of trees will go too before planting them.

Structured Screens

There are plenty of clever additions you can make to your garden to place screens between the neighbours and your sanctuary. There are two aspects to this – the structures can either serve as a screen to hide you from sight, or they can create a focal point to serve as a distraction.

Pergolas, screens and gazebos suit both purposes extremely well as you can add any of them to the most overlooked areas of the garden. Thinking ahead to the foliage you can grow on them will give you an idea of just how privacy will be created. They can be the distraction initially, but once they have plenty of plants growing all over them, they’ll be a more private spot to hide in too.

Feeling exposed? Our design team can help you feel comfortable in your own garden again. Call them today on 0116 210 0760.