Augmenting a fence

[SevenAteNine]

Hello

I finally have a small garden. There is a not particularly inspiring wooden fence round the sides.

I'd like to plant something at the edges to grow to five feet or so, give us a bit more privacy and maybe a bit of security.

I like hawthorn, especially at this time of year. But how wide will it get? Anything else I could look at.

I'm only a beginner, so please don't worry about offednding me by stating the obvious.

Hawthorn is nice, if prickly - do you fancy a proper hedge (which will need trimming at least once a year and probably more) or individual trees, which you can just leave to grow?

We have a mixture of trees and shrubs. There are loads of shrubs to choose from - spiky ones, non spiky ones, flowering ones, evergreen ones and deciduous ones.

Think about whether you want a proper burglar deterrent, or just some height, whether you need all round screening or just summer prettiness.

You could also paint the fence and add trellis to the top for privacy & security, then you could grow climbing plants up it,which usually take up less space than shrubs or trees.

I like traviata's idea of climbers.

I would extend with a trellis, paint the whole thing a nice colour - there are so many beautiful wood paints out there now - and then I would train climbers up it. The advantage of this is that you don't lose nearly as much space as you would with a hedge, and you can grow many different climbers for year-round interest.

You can then use the space to have some lovely borders!

OK. Fence and trellis it is.

Is there anything I can stick in the borders that is OK if you have a dog?

You can't go wrong with geraniums, but they aren't evergreen.

A mix of small shrubs, spring bulbs (tulips, scilla, loads of others, but avoid narcissus which can be fatally poisonous and don't let the dog eat the bulbs generally) and geraniums would look pretty good most of the time.