Garden overlooked

[Itsrainingten]

So two sets of viewers have said they like our house but they feel the garden is too overlooked. There were trees between our garden and the neighbours behind which gave both of us privacy from the other but the neighbours cut them all down (no idea why because they were at the north east end of their garden so wouldn't have been blocking their sun!
The trees were in their garden (right at the far end) so they had the right to do it but it's so annoying that we're now struggling to sell because of it. The thing is once you're actually IN the garden it doesn't really feel overlooked but looking out the window upstairs all you can really see is their house. Is there anything we can do? Anyone got any ideas?
I was really upset when they cut them down because there had been parrots nesting in them but I got over it eventually and now I'm upset again!

Is buying some pleached trees to plant in your garden an option?

how much are you willing to spend and how high does it need to be to give privacy? By the sounds of things quite high. Mature trees are 💰

Put a picture up or change your name and put a picture up, that will really help.

You could put a voile panel over the windows upstairs so that the view isn't so obvious and once in the garden they will realise it's not overlooked.

You could put a wooden pergola up and train something fairly large from the garden centre up it....

Pleached trees - expensive option.

You can hire large garden plants in containers .... expensive.

Put trellis up along the fence.

I don't think trellis is going to do it tbh. We'd need mature trees to make a difference because it's their upstairs window thats the problem. Ugh

Do you think maybe asking the estate agent to take people out into the garden first might make a difference? So they've been out there and seen that it really doesn't feel overlooked rather than they look out the upstairs window and make their mind up based on that

Could you cover your upstairs windows with privacy film so it’s not obvious when viewers look out of the window?
If your garden is big enough you could put some sort of fabric canopy up or one of those large freestanding swinging umberella canopy’s that could block it out a bit and distract their eye.

I think taking them to room that shows it is ocwr looked last is a good idea

Harder to get someone to change their initial thoughts

I e rejected house due to overlooking. Our current house (London terrace) has a low apartment building at the back. In summer this is almost totally obscured by trees. In the winter it matters less as we don't sit out. I did build a pergola at the end of the (not long -40ft) garden with a sitting area underneath. This looks so lovely and welcoming (I've hung decorative plates, a mirror and wall planters) that people don't tend to look up at the building.

I'm thinking of maybe bamboo as it's fast growing. Is that an option? Would we be able to get it pre-grown to a tall height? Thinking it would be cheaper than mature trees. It would need to be on pots though because I know it's invasive. Is that a bad idea? Could it work?

I planned a eucalyptus tree to help solve this. Grows fast and evergreen, but not a fir tree. Ok for a single tree, but a row could be a problem under the high hedges act.

Bamboo won't be tall enough I wouldn't have thought. Work out how tall the barrier needs to be, then get a nursery to quote you for what you need.

Then you can see if it's cheaper to buy the trees, or reduce your asking price.

The bamboo you need is the one you don't want.

How high are you talking here?

Mature pleached trees suitable for screening, such as hornbeam or lime, that are around 3 metres high go for around £300-£400 each and you'll probably need to plant them every 1.5m - 1.8m.

Or you can get other plants that have been grown as a standard tree, such as cotoneaster or laurel. These will typically have a single stem about 1.8m tall and then branches and leaves going up to around 3m. Probably around £200 each for these.

Here's an example of what I was talking about above:

https://www.wykehammatureplants.co.uk/case-studies/cotoneaster-cornubia-trees-provide-instant-privacy/

Don’t plant bamboo!! I wouldn’t buy a house with bamboo planted in the garden.

This looks great. Thank you. Maybe this is something we could do.

I wasn't going to plant bamboo. I was thinking of sticking it in pots. I bloody hate the stuff too. These trees are a much better option though

You're going to have to allocate a decent budget for some mature trees. Thousands. Spindly 6' high saplings would be pointless.

I wouldn't go for privacy stuff on window - if I was viewing it would make me feel as if there was a problem!

I'm thinking of maybe bamboo as it's fast growing. Is that an option? Would we be able to get it pre-grown to a tall height?

I use bamboo for screening, growing in a cattle trough. It was about 10-12 foot high when delivered I think.

And given all the bad publicity around bamboo at the moment, I wouldn't want to see any of it. I wouldn't know which is "bad" bamboo and which is "ok" bamboo - I'd be put off by either!

Someone else mention it, but pleached trees? They are expensive, because they have been trained on a frame, but in time, will become bushy and block a view- if evergreen. Ideally find a plant nursery that specialise in mature trees, rather than one that has veg/fruit/flowers etc.

We created raised planters out of railway sleepers that are completely enclosed base and sides ( with a few chinks at the bottom for drainage) and planted bamboo for screening. The are approximately waist height if you are standing next to them. This was because we have a bus stop just outside the house and passengers could see into the garden from the top deck of double deckers.

Three years later the bamboo now completely hides a double decker bus from view when standing in the garden and the garden cannot be seen from the top deck of the bus. The bamboo plants have thickened up and grown taller within the planter but have not spread at all beyond it.

If your house is for sale now, none of these are really going to work. Pleached trees would be great (as you can tell from the username) but will still take 1-2 years to fill out. In the interim they would just highlight the problem.

How about a garden shade sail? Relatively cheap and quite effective, combined with taking viewers to see the garden first, before the upstairs.