Desperately need some screening advice

[cakeycakeface]

We've just lost a planning decision that went to committee. We now face having two very large double storey buildings being built parallel and directly in front of us. All our public rooms face into them as well as one bedroom. Our home is an old bungalow on an elevated position which means their top floor windows and glazed fronts will have views into our home. We know this because the neighbour already has these views.

We need screening, and really fast, and I expect it will be costly. We don't want a leylandi (sp?) hedge, because we're going to have to look at this everyday and I'm not a fan of them. A mixture of trees and shrubs and hedging. I'm going to have to let go my dream of bedding borders!

We'd need to try plant immediately for a height that can screen the windows. It's going to be hard, these buildings are massive and very ugly.

And yes, we're also thinking of moving, but we'd have to screen anyway to sell the house.

I would really appreciate some advice. I'm feeling very low about it and need to try focus forwards.

Well, DH spoke to the developer building the two plots. It wasn't him or any of his people. He said he'd never be that petty and said he'd seen the wall and fence and was fine with it. His comment was, "I can see you've planted beech - it'll all eventually be covered, won't it?" He also said if we had to go for planning permission, instead of an objection he'd write a formal letter saying he had NO objections to it I suspect he's feeling a wee bit guilty about the impact his plot is having on us. That means two out of the three directly affected houses are ok with the fence.

Holly I'm thinking about getting some clematis (Montana, white because it is fast and vast) and maybe honeysuckle.

Have a look at montana varieties - some are now scented! Wouldn't that be just glorious?

We have to put in for planning permission. That's confirmed.

What's quite amusing is the planner has been on the building site a few times apparently, and hadn't even noticed our new wall and higher fence. She had to look through pictures she'd taken of the other building work to try find our boundary and see if our wall needed permission.

DH got the impression she wouldn't make us knock down the retaining wall, but she was evasive about fence height. She said she'd need to assess it and consider any objections made.

We've also realised that our neighbour, and their immediate neighbour, both have fences that are too high too. The norm in the area is fences of about 2m, I'm not sure it will have dawned on them that they need planning permission as well. (Theirs can only be 1m high along a road). I suspect they think the norm is the norm because it complies with planning. Also, both of their fences have been up for less than ten years.

We won't submit an anonymous complaint.

Anyway ... we'll be tackling this application tomorrow. Does anyone have any idea what the main planning 'issues' about high fences are that we need to address to make planning happy to approve it? Residential amenity, visual amenity, sunlight issues - these are the thoughts I have, but I want to be very sure I've covered everything possible.

Oooh, we had a visit from a planner recently and she was completely impossible to read and entirely deadpan. It's disconcerting when you can't just have a normal chat, isn't it?? I suppose it's all about professionalism, but I think people would feel a lot more understanding about the whole thing if there was more explanation of what exactly was going on rather than these slightly mysterious visits from officials! I don't mind someone saying 'I can't tell you what the outcome will be just yet' but it would be nice to hear them say something like 'I've got your plans and I'm just here to check how they work in the context of your house and your neighbour's place and then I'll go back to the office, have a think, and get back to you'. Whereas mine just turned up saying 'I'm a planner', refused a cuppa, and marched into the back garden with a tape measure. I'm being unfair judging a whole profession on one visit though.

I don't think the planners can do anything about your wall, because it's well within the height limits isn't it?

DH says to make primary arguments about the lack of impact on others (light), as well as more secondary positive arguments about your own need for privacy and a safe space for your children to play. But he says the latter are less significant than the former so the weight needs to be on how it doesn't do harm.

I know what you mean about the planning visit. To be fair, our planner does seem very human even if she doesn't give anything away. I still believe she really didn't want to approve these, but had little choice. She told our councillors she was finding it a very difficult decision. It was either that or admit their department had screwed up allowing the development in the first instance.

Incidentally, they are investigating the removal of the woodland, and it seems likely that planning DID screw up.

Yes, I think that's the way we'll approach it, as your DH says.

Planning made a few arguments while approving these huge buildings that I can now deflect back to them to support our case too!

On the subject of light, our (complaining) neighbour has recently planted two trees (tightly together and VERY close to his building), in front of his ground floor window - the only window affected by the fence. It has dawned on me that this was possibly his way of sending us a message that our fence is so unacceptable he was forced to do this. But... he can't really object on the grounds of light anymore, can he? He has also addressed screening of the fence on our behalf as well. (He is, however, going to have to dig up and move the trees in a relatively short space of time. )

And the landscape consultant proposed screening planting in front of the new buildings during our last bruising encounter with planning. She said that since planting would be 4m from the building it wouldn't interfere with enjoyment of their property. Our planting is much further away.

Fingers crossed.

It sounds as though you have a good case coming together cakey! I am hopeful that they will see the need for your screening.

Have you had any more thoughts about planning the rest of your garden? You must be frazzled with all this upset - perhaps planning a gorgeous flower bed in your new layout might be a distraction?! (I find it helps me tremendously when I feel upset about things, but this may just be me being weird!!). In spite of all the hassle you're having with these new houses I'm still tremendously envious of your enormous garden and beautiful location! And I still think it will be wonderful in the long term.

Oh, and in other news, we got the pre-application through for our build, subject to a couple of (very sensible) conditions around retaining the hedge for our neighbours' privacy... so we now put in a full planning application. Provided there is no objection from the neighbours (and they haven't raised any with us on sharing the plans - I hope they feel they could) it should go through, fingers crossed!

That is very sensible advice regarding privacy! It sounds as if your application should proceed smoothly.

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll get beds dug this year. It would involve a digger (again) and the screening job has been very costly so far.

I've planning to plant annuals in the two very narrow mean borders next to the house. (Previous owners did not enjoy gardening at all!) And I've taken over three raised beds in the vegetable area to turn into cutting beds for flowers for the house. Again, just annuals. And a few hanging baskets. DH has some veg in the go. But that's it.

The rest of the garden feels daunting, if I'm honest. My previous garden was very very lovely (I don't know how it happened that way because my plant knowledge is rubbish), but the structure of beds and hard landscaping there was obviously informed by the way it sloped. Here we have wide expanses of flat lawn - literally a blank canvas to carve up and I have NO experience of that at all. Scary! I will definitely be posting here for input!!

What I do think would be worthwhile would be planting perennials this year, and trying to grow sturdy pots of established plants ready to go into beds next year. To save on money. To this end I have four salvia seedlings (amistad) I actually got from Sarah Raven growing on. And that's it!! aargh.

Any ideas for reliable beautiful plants to grow now in pots for later?

I, too, find it very daunting when I'm doing a new garden, being a rank amateur at this! My current garden is totally different from my last one, and it took me a long, long time to figure out how I wanted to landscape it. I'd always done borders around edges previously, and I knew that would look really terrible with the kind of slope I have, so I was basically forced to try curves and a layout that placed taller things more centrally - which felt like a great departure from anything I'd tried before. I'm really pleased with how it's coming together now, but I have moved some plants 3 TIMES in as many years!! I suppose that's really what I want to say: that ideally it'd be perfect first time, but that (thankfully, in my case) most plants are forgiving of mistakes and will tolerate being moved!!

If I were in your shoes, I think I would spend this year mostly reading and visiting other gardens and actively planning, planning, planning. You have enviable, enviable amounts of space to play with, and will do the most amazing things with it. But it is bound to take a little time to really think through what you want, particularly if you are even considering a design that is based on subdivisions into some kind of rooms, or a design that isn't entirely centrifugal (and with the amount of space you have, you're pretty much forced into thinking differently about that, I would have thought!!).

Visiting places that have similar amounts of space and seeing what you do or don't like is something I really enjoy. But sometimes I think that we often see larger gardens with 10+ acres and there is a job then to work out how to apply the inspiration at a smaller scale. I went to York Gate Gardens a short while ago, which I think is about an acre in size, and was so inspired by what they had achieved, and by how instantly translatable it was to my (smaller) garden. So getting out to some NGS places, and some of the many beautiful gardens near you (there are lots to the West I think?) might be useful.

I suppose there are some questions here about time too: what you need now may be slightly different to the garden you want in 15 years' time, so there may be some parts that you need to keep to suit current needs and some parts that you develop with an eye to them looking good in 5+ years. I'm thinking of things like hedging or topiary, which can take a while to look good.

To get a gardening fix, what about sowing some biennials for next year? It's nearly time to do things like foxgloves, lunaria, sweet rocket etc! Also, planting up pots that you will be using long term might be nice. ALso, you can't go wrong with loads of repeated box balls or yew topiary, and they are so much cheaper to grow up and on than to buy.

Think about bulbs to plant this Autumn. I admit I have skimmed the thread, but you could do lovely woodland planting around any trees that you plant, think snowdrops and bluebells. I hope things get better for you.

I'm thinking ahead, if I planted bulbs, could I do so in plastic pots to plant out as plants when I have beds ready next year? I've only ever planted bulbs directly in the ground before.

I am browsing plants at the moment to start growing for next year. Looking forward to suttons apricot foxglove already!

I'm also trying to choose between nepeta varieties. I loved this in my previous garden, but not sure what variety I had? Which would you recommend?

aargh! Just read this.

" I strongly recommend planting only sterile hybrids and avoiding any Nepeta that are propagated from seed. The seed-grown catmints can be aggressively weedy, spreading themselves throughout the garden and crowding out neighboring perennials."

It'll cost me a fortune to buy plants! And how does one know if it has been propagated from seed or not?

Yes, you can do autumn bulbs (in a few months) in pots and then plant out - it is a bit of an extra cost in terms of compost, so maybe choose some you really love and then plan for a mammoth bulb-planting session the autumn after next where you bulk buy and put them straight in the ground.

Secret Gardening Club are really good for cheap plants and they have a couple of nepetas at the moment. It is well worth the £10 membership fee if you're stocking a new garden:

www.secretgardeningclub.co.uk/

oooh...

shovetheholly please tell us more about Secret Gardening Club!
Have you been a member for long? Do you order often? Are they very good quality?

//sorry to hijack cakeycakeface