"Screening With Plants"
By Skip Richter
They say good fences make good neighbors. Well there are certainly times when a little bit of a screen can help provide some privacy or perhaps hide an unsightly view. While privacy fencing certainly has its place, I prefer the look of a living fence to wood, chain link or any other material. Even a well-designed and constructed privacy fence can be beautified with some appropriate plant material.
Here are a few tips I've learned from experience and the experiences of other gardeners about using plants as a visual barrier.
How high is high enough?
We don't always need a tall tree to do the job of blocking out unsightly views or providing privacy. Take a stroll through the backyard or sit in the patio area and evaluate just how tall a screen needs to be. Often a 6-10 foot tall plant is enough to break the sight line and make that neighbor's idea of backyard art or creative landscaping disappear!
Don't forget about the winter...
Many of our outstanding landscape shrubs are deciduous. While they provide a great screen in summer, by winter the leaves are gone and with them our privacy. This may not matter if the privacy is for a swimming pool (we southerners seldom indulge in Nordic swimming!), but would matter in most other situations.
Evergreen plants provide year-round screening and are usually the best choice. Keep in mind that foliage grows where there is light. Shrubs often grow "top-heavy" as their top gets wider, shading out the lower areas. This leaves us (sorry for the pun) with a lack of foliage down low where it is most critical. Prune hedges to keep the tops a little more narrow that the base to allow light to the lower areas and avoid this common problem.
One species need not do it all...
You don't have to get all the benefits of a tall screen from one plant. You can use a taller shrub or columnar tree and place mid sized shrubs in front of it. Two or three levels of different plants does more that just screen, these tiered plantings create visual interest in your landscape.
Vines provide fast results...
There are a number of evergreen vines that provide fast coverage of a fence or other structure. Many offer blooms as an added bonus. I have a personal distaste for chain link and yet have been blessed with this durable fencing material in several of the places I have lived in my life. But give me a chain link fence and I can turn it into a bloomin' beauty in a season or two with a few choice vines!
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Last Updated:
January 14, 2005