DON’ T FENCE ME IN

According to Scott Leung, the style of planting you adopt along the front fence says a lot about your lifestyle. “It all depends on how connected you want to be to the neighbourhood,” says Scott. “Go open and transparent if you want interaction with your neighbours, or use dense screening if you prefer privacy.” For open-style planting, he suggests perennials and groundcovers such as lomandra, hellebores and dichondra in combination with trees such as

Albizia or jacaranda. For dense screening, use thicker evergreen shrubs such as Osmanthus, viburnum and Elaeocarpus, clipped or cloud-formed, to create a block at eye level.

In addition, consider the colour of your fence. “It’s one of the biggest mistakes people make,” says Scott. “The front fence needs to be dark so it recedes and lets the foliage colours come to the fore. Do away with white for your picket fence as it will only dominate the garden and highlight the sense of it being a barrier.”