Many city and town gardens are faced with the problem of lack of privacy and noisy neighbours. With so many new houses being built and the high damage to live in such confined spaces, we have found ourselves to be living on top of each other more and more and this means smaller gardens and more challenges for the gardener. One garden feature that has been in use for many a year is the humble garden trellis and these can again be used in small town gardens
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- Pergola
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- Trellis & Pergola
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- Trellis
Privacy is not easily solved but the feeling of enclosure and security can be created by simply fixing timber trellis to the top of your existing garden wall or fence. If you intend on doing this then i would recommend that you use either an expanding timber trellis or a 300mm x 1800mm garden trellis.
The advantage of an expanding garden trellis is that you can shorten or lengthen the trellis to suit your wall length or required privacy height. These trellis will need to be fixed to your existing wall or fence. To do so you should use 3 x 1 inch timber sections of around 600mm or 2 foot in length. Fix these upright timber sections to your wall or fence at the necessary spacings. Generally the upright sections would be spaced 1800mm apart and would be fixed half way below the wall with the other half (300mm) protruding above the wall.
If you are working with a solid block wall then you will need to drill into the wall using a masonry drill bit (size 8) and fix the timber sections to the wall with 8mm express nails.
Trellis is just one way in which you can add privacy and help to enclose your garden. You could always extend the height of your wall (not recommended). You could build a timber pergola or even better- you could try to attract the eye inwards into the garden – rather than focusing the eye on the surrounding houses and windows.
Inward designs or ‘static’ design involve formal patterns or square and straight lines with central focal points. This design will focus the eye on the garden and the central features. This can be done by positioning a water feature, sculpture or patio in the centre of the garden. The problem with these gardens is that they leave little room for lawns or space to run around. But generally this is a problem already faced by small town gardens.
So, if your faced with the challenge of lack of privacy then you should get out the pen and paper and get creative.