How to hide a fence

[SeaPidge]

Our neighbours' garden is slightly higher than ours. They've recently had their garden redone, and decided to put in their own fence about 6inches in from their side of the boundary.

Because their land is higher, we can see the top of their fence above ours, and it looks a bit rubbish (see photo).

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what we could do to hide it?

We were thinking of taking down our fence and planting something that grows tall(ish) and narrow, so that it doesn't stick out too far into our flowerbed. Does anyone have any plant suggestions? Or any other ideas of what we could do? We would like to keep something along the actual boundary line.

Would you want something that covers it permanently or is it just an issue when you're out enjoying the garden in the summer? Also do you know which direction your side of the fence faces- if you want something to grow large to conceal the fence it'll be easier if you pick a plant that's happiest in that particular orientation. If you want something permanent you could try growing an evergreen jasmine (it'll need some support to cling to though to get going).
If you can get away with just concealing it in the summer you could either try a fast growing rose or wisteria if the spot is sunny enough (again this will need some support to get going on your side of the fence). Or you could try some very tall perennials/annuals, things like sun flowers, Cephalaria gigantea, or Verbena bonariensis. The benefit of these is they fulfil your brief of being tall and narrow, and also you won't need to install a trellis or wire support system (although they might need staking once they get very tall, but this is definitely less work than installing a trellis!)

Clematis Montana grows really fast and is a great cover for ugly fences.

Hi @Wildwood6, thank you for replying.

The photo I took is the view from our kitchen. We have bifolds all along the back of the house, so it's very visible from our lounge and our kitchen/diner i.e very visible all of the time, whether we are indoors or out!

So yes, we would want to hide it all year round if possible.

The fence runs the whole length of our garden, about 60ft in total. Our garden is south facing, so that side of the garden is on the west, and gets the sun mostly in the morning.

Thank you, I will have a look at all the plants you have recommended. We have thought about replacing our fence with trellis and growing something evergreen up it - I guess the Jasmine you have mentioned would be good for that? I think it probably wouldn't matter if we could see a little bit of their fence over the top of something like that, it's more the 2 fences that look ridiculous.

I had thought maybe bamboo, but even the clumping varieties do spread, don't they, and so we'd need an awful lot of containers to put them in to do the whole length of the garden...

@MyOtherProfile thank you, I guess for clematis we'd need to either grow it up our existing fence or put some big trellis panels in where our fence is and grow it up that?

It can grow up the existing fence. You can put in a couple of nails and some gardening wire as support for it. It always blows my mind how fast it grows.

I agree with growing a fast growing evergreen climber all over your fence. Eventually it will also bush out at the top and so hide a lot of your neighbour’s fence too.

Climbing hydrangea might work well especially if it doesn’t get that much sun. Jasmine or trachelospermum is good too but not self clinging so will need wires.

I don't think jasmine or clematis would work (I have both but they look rubbish in winter and you can see the fence through. However I planted a tiny variegated Ivy (the type you get in bouquet type plant, think one of my sons had bought a basket for my birthday and when the other plants died off I didn't like to throw the ivy out) I planted it outside my back gate in the alley hoping it would cover the back of the fence but it has absolutely covered both sides so I think if given time it would travel and cover the neighbours fence too as I've found it running across the concrete path at the back by at least 3 feet and cut it back loads. It looks good now and in the summer there is a small lilac tree which looks good with it as a backdrop. My fence is exactly the same as yours, I would post a photo but afraid I'm technologically challenged😉

Oh and agree with minipie it has bushed up at the top to at least another 2 feet so would certainly disguise/screen your neighbours fence

Thank you all.

Quick question: would growing a climber all over our fence eventually destroy the fence?

(although tbh I'm hoping to have moved house long before it would get to that stage!)

I’d remove your fence too to be honest, and I’d ask the neighbours if I could paint theirs yourside.

why not a proper hedge of yews or cedar? green year round and can be trimmed to shape.

@fallfallfall

why not a proper hedge of yews or cedar? green year round and can be trimmed to shape.

Good idea..

Remove your fence (assuming the land between the two fences is yours) and plant some fast growing bushy shrubs or pay the extra and buy some fully grown bushy shrubs.

Thanks everyone.

Our fence is exactly on the boundary line. So we can take our fence out and plant something where it was.

I don't want to just take the fence out and leave nothing there, because then although we would "gain" 6inches of garden, it confuses the question of exactly where the property boundary is and I don't want to have issues with people querying it in years to come.

Also, they have used a bit of a mishmash of different panels, which although they all look the same from their side, are all different from our side, so I really don't want it on display.

Yes, we could just plant a hedge along the boundary but (a) we'll have to be constantly trimming back a 60ft long hedge and (b) as it would be very close to the neighbours' fence, it will inevitably grow into it and damage it if we're not 100% on top of maintaining it which is what their hedge did to our fence before they took their hedge down, but I don't want to do the same back to them

Although we do our own gardening, and do keep reasonably on top of it, we don't really want a huge hedge to maintain.

You could attach trellis to the top of your fence, you can then buy faux hedging on a roll that you can roll along the trellis and secure with gardening wire. It’s really convincing and instant if you want immediate screening for this Spring/ summer.

If you don’t want faux vegetation then there are options of willow or bamboo stems on a roll that can be attached the same way.

@SeaPidge I'd put privacy panels on top of your fence like the photo attached. Then I'd paint your fence and the privacy panel black and plant a few creepers along your fence line for instance evergreen Jasmine. Or plant some pleached trees as in the photo.

The black looks amazing with green popping against it. We painted our black about 6 years ago and have not needed to redo it as yet, it looks fab.

@SailingNotSurfing I wouldn't pull your fence down unless you want to get the neighbours aggravated about boundary issues .... can end up costing a whole lot and cause issues come selling time.

Laurel, Mexican mock orange, Ceanothus

www.gardenersdream.co.uk/5-x-flowering-hedge-shrubs-colorful-potted-garden-plants-p351

Something like this

@SailingNotSurfing

Remove your fence (assuming the land between the two fences is yours) and plant some fast growing bushy shrubs or pay the extra and buy some fully grown bushy shrubs.

Trouble with fast growing things is that they don't know when to stop. The bigger they get, the faster they grow.

OP, to be honest I wouldn't take the fence out. If there's only a few inches of soil between the boundary line and their fence, you aren't going to be able to plant anything big enough there. It would either grow too lop-sided and fall over, or push into their fence and damage it.

If I were you, I'd attach some trellis to the top of yours, which would disguise the look of theirs.

Have they painted their side of their fence? I was wondering whether you could stain your side of their fence the same colour as yours, it would blend in better. It's surprising how well a dark brown fence disappears into the background.

Funnily enough, the neighbours have painted their side of their fence black. On our side of their fence, though, there's just a few black drips...

I had thought maybe pleached trees, and that photo gives me a few ideas, thank you.

The only issue we had with attaching trellising to the top of our fence, is that then they would see it above their fence, and might attach trellising to theirs to hide it, and... it starts getting a bit circular.

We are now thinking maybe we screw in some hooks to the top of our fence posts, tie some sturdy garden wire around the hooks, and grow a climber along the top of our fence IYSWIM. That would at least be fairly quick and simple to do, although it would take a while for the climber to grow enough to hide their fence. But at least if we decided we wanted something different, we wouldn't have spent £££ and time on the wrong thing.

But anything you grow needs to be maintained or it will damage the fence op, a hedge is actually easier because you only trim it once a year.

@RockaLock your idea of the wire above your fence to grow something on is good, however in reality when I tried that the plant wouldn't take off on it pretty sure its because with out a panel behind the wire there is too much wind for the plant to do very well. I tried for 2 years with no joy, then put the panels up and the jasmine is going so well.
You could have the privacy panel cut to the height of your neighbours fence so that you are both happy ?

I think the local hardware stores cut wood to size

If you want something to hide it immediately what about a contemporary pergola? That way you can panel the back with either a solid back or a slatted back and due to the allowed height of a garden building you would easily conceal the neighbour's fence. Plus you could enjoy sitting under it looking in the opposite direction.

It doesn't have to be very deep. Like this 2nd photo down

@MyOtherProfile

Clematis Montana grows really fast and is a great cover for ugly fences.

This. Or Ceanothus. Both can cover a fence in two summers. You'll just need to prune them back to shape when they overgrow their space.

Or if you are feeling creative, you could plant some fruit trees trained on wires against the fence and have blossom and fruit.

Check your soil. What direction does your fence face? South? East?
Lots of lovely choices

In not much more than two summers, Clematis montana can reach the ridge tiles of a roof or the top of a tree. I’d go for a less vigorous one, slower to establish but less work to keep in check.