Covering an Unsightly Fence
Mumsy100
Posts: 2
I thought I might plant an evergreen hedge to cover my thirty foot long eight foot hiGh fence but need ideas. Could it be broken up with seating I wonder? I need ideas please - it is a narrow garden and a horrid cheap wooden fence.
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Posts
Hi Mumsy, welcome
A hedge could be just as boring. I'd break it up with different shrubs in front of it, some evergreen, some deciduous and some pretties in front. Then you wouldn't notice the fence so much. You could stain some of the panels to make it look more interesting,
In the sticks near Peterborough
You can also screw vine eyes to th eposts at regular intervals and stretch wires between them to support climbing roses, honeysuckle, clematis and/or other climbers as well as a mix of shrubs and perennials to extend seasonal interest..
Sometimes it helps just to change the colour so consider painting it cream to make your garden look wider and lighter and show off the plants you do put in front of it.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
I don'don't think I would paint or stain the fence as this would draw attention to it which it what you are trying to avoid. As Nut says a mixture of evergreens and deciduous plus climbers would help hide it but it may take time.
I wonder how high your fence is? I have grown two holly trees, a pyracantha,a climbing hydrangea, a Rowan tree and other sundry plants in front of my fence.My other half put some wire, fixed onto the concrete posts, across each panel and now the fence is hardly seen in the summer time.
I think you need to bear in mind that at some time or other the fence will have to be painted or coated with some preservative or other - and this could affect (or even kill off) things you plant very close to it. With that in mind, perhaps you'd be able to leave some space between the fence and any shrubs you decide to plant. If, for instance, you were to make two semi-circular beds - with the fence at the back of each one - it would mean you could leave enough room to get to the fence itself when you needed to.
If there were - say - a couple of fence panels between the two beds, you could attach some wooden trellis to the panels/posts to enable you to plant some climbers. The trellis could be removed to enable the fence to be painted - it could be supported temporarily whilst any painting took place and the climbing plants left in situ if they'd been planted some little distance away from the fence itself in the first place.
Wow - I didn't think I would get one answer and I have loads - thank you so much - I shall consider all of them
