Screen Planting - New Fences, Unsighlty Objects and for Privacy

Gardens are enclosures from the world, they surround our homes and provide an oasis of calm. They in turn are usually enclosed by fences of some kind, open rural fencing, palings or, for those who can afford to lash out, brick or stone.

On village or suburban blocks hardwood fences are a reality as are views of neighbours and increasingly unsightly intrusions such as communications towers plonked on a bare hill or in the neighbourhood. We need to screen them out but in some cases they can be used as a part of the garden design.

For instance a  new or existing fence sans planting is not a disaster - it's an opportunity. True, fences can create dry inhospitable areas that are difficult to tackle but are not impossible. For instance a fence on the south side of a house in dry shade will, if properly prepared, support hydrangeas (including hydrangea petiolaris), fuschias, calla lilies, violets and babies tears. Voila - a multi-layered picture.

A bare fence in the sun can be transformed by installing supports for climbers and then planting shrubs or trees that create a miniature woodland in which the fence disappears. It's all in how you tackle it.

For a single unsightly object think of a single tree or planting that will obscure the offending item. Often the problem can be solved by planting or placing something in the mid ground, not necessarily on the boundary. 

If your garden is on a large scale and you need a quick screen please resist the Leylandii solution - the trees are uninteresting, take up huge amounts of space and may create a headache later on. Leylandii on properties are reaching huge heights and creating mono cultures where nothing lives. And they're young yet, how big will they be in 20 years?

Out on Range Road at Mittagong a screen of the Leylandii pests is obscuring not only the property it bounds but a previoulsy gorgeous view to Sydney. There's not even a break in the screen, nothing that creates interest for the occupants or passersby. If I was coming home to that at night it would depress me.

We owe something to the community when we hold large tracts of land bordering roads, to enhance the landscape, not create the country equivalent of a  high rise ghetto of one very dull tree.

There are alternatives, all it needs is imagination. Try thinking of screens as woods or hedges in which nature has had a hand - a very light hand. Try mixing things up a little.