Disguise this house

[crazyaginglady]

What can I do to help digitise the side of next doors house?

disguise

Plant trees but not up against the fence, closer to your house so that they look bigger. I'll try and find a link.

Advice on sight lines (you're not overlooked but the principles apply)

m_

We have something like this backing on to our garden. Just got used to it tbh. Plants and shrubs along your fence will make it easier to look at.

We have this too - I call it the Colditz wall 😩

Have planted Himalayan birches in the foreground which minimises the ugly in summer at least.

Or silver birch, which grows taller but is more slender, I believe.

Only plant silver birch if you're happy to regularly pick up twiglets from your lawn!

Also silver birch is the tree that people with pollen/tree allergies are most allergic to.

And forever clean the little bits of crap they spew. So annoying.

Get Banksy round.

How about a bamboo hedge? Depending on variety, they can grow very tall, very fast, but won't take up much space in your garden.

Just make sure it's a clumping bamboo rather than a spreading one, otherwise the canes will be popping up in all of your neighbours' gardens too.

My neighbour has espalier trees which sit above the fence level and it looks great.

Pleached trees - see image

Or plant to distract the gaze instead - eg a tree in the corner with stunning blooms and lovely foliage

Gold leylandii. It'll provide a very effective screen quite quickly - and it's not the monster it's made out to be if it's regularly cut back and maintained at a sensible height. We pay for someone to this once a year.

And in winter too, because of the tracery of twigs in front of the wall.

Go for something with enough height to take a chunk out of the bare wall, and with enough interest that the eye is drawn forward to-the tree. Sorbus, Prunus serrula, snake-bark maple, paperbark maple.

You won’t be able to disguise it, but you can draw attention away from it

I don’t know much about trees but I believe you have to be careful about their roots and your house’s foundations.

As PPs have said shrubs etc on those fences will draw your eyes away from those walls.

Personally, I’d just move the chair so you aren’t sitting there facing it. 😁

I’d pick a blossom tree,one that blossome early. I’ve got a prunus autumnalis that has blossoms for most of the w8nter.

I wouldnt try to grow something taller than that house, it would look awful from your garden. Something to soften it, with the brickwork as a backdrop would be good though.

I'd move the patio to the end of the garden, in the suniest corner, so when youre sitting out you can look toward your house instead. Perhaps you want a meandering path from your back door to the patio?

A tree or big shrub midway down on the side opposite the patio. Something to catch your eye when the patio area isnt its best - so autumn /winter /spring, underplanted with spring bulbs with a bird feeder hung from it for the winter.

Also, try and aim for colours that go with the brickwork. Itll make it more like a backdrop than a "look at MEEEE! Im a totally massive out of place wall!!!". Miscanthus (which is a big grass with beigy buff coloured plumes from late summer that last all winter) would work - its not IMO a vastly beautiful plant BUT it would be good colour-wise with the wall, and is very low maintenance.

My thinking is to avoid having a rectangle of grass surrounded by a boring fence, because when that happens your eyes just rush through it and see The Wall. One way is to think of a very roughly figure 8 shaped lawn, with the gaps filled in with plants, patio, garden shed, trampoline, whatever it is you need.