Garden Screening

How about attaching a trellis to the top of the fence and growing a creeper . It will soften the fence and give you privacy. Any of the clematis montanas grow like crazy so would cover quickly and have lovely flowers in spring. Good luck!

Hii,

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I did consider adding a trellis but really wasn't sure how I could attach it to the fence without it being quite flimsy and also as the posts are concrete I can't take them out and increase the height. Any suggestions would be great as it could be a decent alternatove to planting tree's.

Would Clematis montanas be hard to keep under control? When we first moved to this house the garden was over run with honey suckle and it took forever to remove. It still keeps popping up every now and then in certain places.

Hmm - I see your problem. Perhaps you could buy a narrow trellis and nail it to the top of the fence. Then encourage the creeper to grow along the trellis. I'm not sure how stable it would be long term ......Clematis montana will take several years to get really big and can usually be kept in line with a hedge trimmer.

I'm afraid that is gardening for you - you wait forever for something to get to a decent size and then you spend the rest of your life trying to keep on top of it!!

Could attach thick battons to your existing posts. Make sure they are long so ca be attached securely down the post and leave enough above the posts to attach trellis too.

Bamboos a good screen, but make sure its a CLUMP former! or else you and your neighbiours, and neighbours neighbours will be pulling it up!

I think an actual hedge would take up to much room but if you want a hedge then grow some shrubs that would grow as a screen but also add some colour and foliage to the garden, almost make a border along fence.
Things like viburnum grow big and bushy but can be cut back at the correct time and even chopped down to ground and they will come back.
Or even a native hedge, they can be kept at around 3foot thick, but allowed to grow tall.
Perhaps a small tree. will think of some!

I too was after a conifer hedge that didn't get too tall and was only three feet wide and got some good advice on GOY. The guy you need to contact about conifers is user bluespruce - what he doesn't know about conifers isn't worth knowing!

But dont conifers once established dry out the soil I would of thought and anything below them would suffer?

One thing you will have to consider whatever method you decide on is the height factor. The law states that any garden boundary should be no more than 1.8 metres in height ( about 6 ft)

I don't think putting a trellis up with aclimber will be sufficient to stop your feeling as if you're a goldfish. Looks to me like you need something that grows to about 12/15 feet, is evergreen and doesn't take up too much room from front to back in the border. I'd suggest bamboo - maybe Phyllostachys nigra (black bamboo) and possibly P. aurea, the yellow version too, to make a change of colour in the stems. You will, though, need to put an impermeable barrier vertically into the soil to stop its roots spreading where you don't want it, so I'd get some kitchen vinyl flooring, 2 feet deep and as long as you need to go along that fence. Dig an area along the fence 2 feet from from front to back the length of the fence, insert the vinyl along the length vertically into the soil, push the soil back into position and plant the bamboo. It will spread sideways anyway, so you don't need too many plants, say one every 3 feet. Only option otherwise is some sort of hedging that gets that height, like Prunus laurocerasus, but it tends to get wide and you'll be constantly cutting it back. At least with the bamboo, once its in, you can just leave it alone and water if the weather is very dry.