Unless you own all you can see from your kitchen door, your garden will be defined by walls, fences or hedges, but how you choose to work with these can help transform the space
When you stand at the back of your house looking out, unless you own everything you can see then you will need to give some thought to what happens at the edges of your plot. The size and location of a garden can significantly influence how you handle boundaries. In a small, town garden you probably need to celebrate them. They often make up a significant percentage of the total area available for you to work with and they can play a huge role in the end result, becoming a key feature rather than something to fade into the shadows.
If you give each boundary the same treatment it can emphasise the lack of space so it’s better to have at least two different surfaces. Simple planting on the side walls and fences and then a more exciting approach to the rear boundary can be an easy solution to make a dramatic backdrop for the whole garden. Boundaries can be expensive so it is always worth trying to work with what you have. If the boundaries really aren’t good and your budget is tight then you could cover them with climbing plants and spend your budget on something to place in front. There are some interesting laser-cut steel panels available now that are easy to install.
Old tumbledown walls can be patched and painted to give them a new lease of life but you should consider the on-going maintenance. White-painted render will lighten a space (and undoubtedly looks incredible in hot climates) but in cooler wetter places it will need repainting on an annual basis to keep it looking good. Better to opt for something a little darker that won’t weather so readily and to think of it as foil to promote the planting in front. Black is always good to show off the green of plants but you can, of course, experiment with colour.
Darker colours tend to recede and make a space feel bigger.
Where privacy is an issue don’t make the mistake of building ever higher to block out a neighbouring window. Often it’s just a sense of privacy that’s required so key windows and roof lines can be dealt with by strategically placed trees or shrubs.
Trellis and slatted panels can work a little like net curtains. If you are close to them then you can see through them and they give a sense of space and airiness yet from further away, they stop people from looking in. While a painted wall is abrupt and finite, seeing light through the trellis screen allows a small garden to breathe and gives it a sense of space. They are also good for security on top of a wall or fence as they collapse under the weight of a burglar. Thorny climbers make an even better intruder deterrent.
If noise is an issue then you will need space. To get any meaningful reduction in noise from roads, for example, you’ll need a depth of around 10m of dense tree and shrub planting.
In a larger garden you may want the boundaries to disappear into the background altogether. The planting in front and within the garden can be used to overpower the geometry of your plot so you can start to forget that it is a rectangular box and the plants and trees within can begin to blend and blur with those beyond.
A rigid hedge around the perimeter will simply emphasise the shape of the garden. Think about a hedge put around a tennis court. It doesn’t hide it, but announces that it’s there. Shaping a boundary hedge can make a difference however. Try cutting it into an organic billowing cloud shape moving in and out and up and down. Other planting in front, particularly taller trees and shrubs to break the outline will make a hazy composition that draws the eye to anything except the boundary.
Not everyone has space for a ha-ha, the 18th-century sunken wall device that removes the visible boundary altogether by sinking it in the ground. But you don’t necessarily need ownership of the countryside beyond your garden and I’ve used this successfully where gardens adjoin neighbouring fields. You can get a similar result by putting a fence in the bottom of a ditch but if you have a view of any kind, even an urban area, leading the eye around the garden and then off to the borrowed view beyond draws attention away from the boundaries. If you are trying to keep animals in then the most invisible method is a simple black chain-link fence set within planting. If you use a hedge then ideally plant a double staggered row with plants on either side and it will soon disappear.
Andy Sturgeon is an internationally renowned landscape and garden designer. He is the winner of eight Gold medals at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, including Best in Show in 2019. andysturgeon.com
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