Best way to get privacy in garden?

[Shitsandgigglez]

We have a very overlooked garden which I want to make more private. We're on a newish estate (about 10 years old now) and the garden has become fairly established in that time and has had some landscaping but the bordering of the garden is just the fence. Behind our house is parking/garages for the houses behind us so we don't have gardens directly onto us if you see what I mean.

I'm thinking if planting some trees along the back fence. Either simple conifers or some pleached trees (which are v expensive!!!)

Has anyone successfully managed to make an overlooked garden much more private? What did you use? Which is the best type of conifer for this? Ideally they'd grow to about 10-12ft and this will be fine as wont block any light out of other people's gardens due to the parking in between.

Or does anyone have any experience with pleached trees?

I'm not sure I'd use conifers. I think I'd go for a mix of trees and heights and evergreen and deciduous. So go for a screening effect rather than a tall range of conifers.

So photinias maybe (evergreen)...with a cherry tree or a sorbus. And some climbers as well.

Conifers to me always look a bit dead...like they don't encourage much wildlife and can look a bit flat.

I know what you mean about conifers but I think I want something fairly dense. Theyre not the most exciting of trees though!

Yours looks lovely. Thanks for the ideas

I would consider bamboo screening (immediate privacy) and then either bamboo or conifers, both do need to be kept under control though through pruning

Look up some bee and bird friendly hedging.

You could use mock orange, pyracantha, which is a thorny but great for wolf life, weigellas, also climbers, just layer a few things.

I wouldn't go for conifers either.

We have ash, alder and sorbus along the back of our garden. The ash trees self seeded from ones in the field behind and have grown really quickly - about 10 feet in two years.

We've also got a horse chestnut but that is going very soon as the DCs planted it unknown to me and we don't have space for it.

High fences or walls.

We don't have a massive garden (typical modern estate size) so we can't have trees that spread out- I want something that will go upwards and be kept narrow, if that makes sense, which is why I thought conifers. Is it that people just don't like the look of them or are they a pain in some way?

Do you have a budget? Depending on how much you want to spend.

A row of camellias. Beautiful plants, slow growing so would need to buy more mature. Expensive to do.

A cherry laurel hedge. Cheap, fast growing will block the fence and you can grow as high as you like.

@Bluntness100 no budget as such. I suppose we're willing to pay more for a prettier garden especially as it's a long term house.

We do actually have two sections we need to screen and one can be seen from the house and the other can't (and it's in more of the kids' play area) so we'd maybe chuck a bit more money at the part we can see from the house and cheap at the other section.

The camellia hedges do look beautiful!

(Im an absolute gardening/horticultural novice btw!! I'm sure you can tell!!)

Not my back garden unfortunately! Just a stock photo

I've got a back yard and I planted a mountain ash which provides berries for the birds, gorgeous autumn colour and just screens the back from the houses opposite in the winter when we aren't in the back yard as much.

Also a massive evergreen honeysuckle over the back fence which provides more screening.

Conifers are ugly, not great for wildlife, suck all the goodness out the soil and don’t stop growing at the height you want. They are also shallow rooted so makes them susceptible to high winds. Also as the roots spread out to up to 7 times the height of the tree they can interfere with patios, drains and house foundations. The only time conifers should be used is in large gardens away from buildings.

Have you thought about maybe laurel hedge?

Don't go for conifers then op, it's just not nice looking. Cherry laurel is very pretty and grows really fast, I got eighty of them at about a foot tall for seventy odd quid from amazon, they grow about three foot a year. You can get much bigger ones obviously. You plant up to two foot apart.

Camellia hedges are beautiful, I'd love one, as said, it's not a cheap option, but would give the wow factor.

The problem with planting conifers with an ultimate height of 10-12 foot is you either use something like Leylandii (please don't!) which will be quick but need constant pruning or a dwarf conifer which might be perfect eventually but may take 20 years to get there.

You do realise you can pleach your own trees? It's not difficult and super cheap to buy them small.

Limes work well or Hornbeam; espaliered apple trees also look amazing but make sure you choose one on the right rootstock.

Do you only need this screen when you are actually in the garden? If so why not try forsythia?
Or a laurel but they are fairly boring.
Conifers are meh. We have few that we inherited.

We need it to create privacy within the house as well. Massively overlooked and then big bifold doors into kitchen. I think it would have put a lot of people off buying the house but it's nothing that can't be fixed

@stayathomegardener I'm such a novice I really am. I'm probably better buying already pleached and then just trying my best at keeping them alive from that point on!!

Bamboo or an abelia hedge.

We do actually already have some conifers in the garden which have been planted against the garage wall and serve no purpose whatsoever (and randomly stink of piss!) They need to come out really as I'm sure they're doing the garage structure no good with their roots!

@RonniePasas north west - does that effect what grows well and what doesn't or are you trying to work out if you overlook my garden?

We had a hornbeam hedge at the bottom of our last garden which was lovely, and native so supports lots of wildlife. It was easy to control with hedge trimmers and although it's deciduous the old leaves stick around so it's a fairly good all year round screen.