8 ways to create boundaries in your garden using borders and screens
When it comes to designing your garden to create boundaries and zone off different sections, there are some clever ways to separate areas while maintaining a succinct feel throughout the overall garden design. You might like to create an area for socialising, an area for quiet contemplation or a private corner that it completely shielded from view.
Here, we suggest clever ways to use borders and screens to create boundaries in a garden, including choosing the right hedging, climbing plants and structural elements.
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1. Green borders
Tightly clipped hedges provide a lush green backdrop for other plants. Depending on the light, you get colour and texture changes as well as attractive shadow play, especially when they are trimmed into exciting shapes or undulating curves. Yew is a favourite evergreen hedging plant and faster to grow than you might think, putting on about a foot of growth a year once established. Deciduous hornbeam and beech give a more open look and can be trimmed for an equally neat finish.
2. Wooden fencing
Timber fences are adaptable to suit any style. A white-painted picket is a country cottage staple, while a darker colour such as sage green or black can give it a more contemporary edge. Chestnut paling is fairly inexpensive and looks good in a rural setting, as does chestnut post-and-rail fencing. Try coppice-products.co.uk or go to a specialist woodworker such as greenmanwoodcrafts.co.uk or edbrooks.com for a bespoke design. Reclaimed timber, including driftwood, adds a textural, coastal feel.
3. Climbing plants
A living screen in the form of climbing plants is one of the best options. Use a low-key timber support, such as trellising or a ready-made archway to create a framework, then choose flowering climbers to suit. Roses such as ‘Madame Alfred Carrière’ give wonderful scent and masses of flowers, while ‘Mortimer Sackler’ is strong and reliable. ‘Félicité-Perpétue’, ‘Bobbie James’ and ‘The Garland’ all have the RHS Award of Garden Merit.
4. Woven features
Woven willow and hazel hurdles are attractive in their own right, so are ideal for disguising a garden’s working area or as a decorative edging for flower or vegetable beds. Musgrovewillows.co.uk and willowfences.co.uk have a good selection. Living willow can be woven on site in a criss-cross lattice effect to create a ‘fedge’ – a cross between a fence and a hedge. Use one- or two-year-old whips of the golden willow (Salix alba var. vitellina) or scarlet willow (‘Britzensis’) for a striking effect and plant in winter to late spring.
5. Hedges on stilts
If you want a certain degree of screening but would still like to have some transparency, a so-called hedge on stilts is perfect. This is a line of pleached standard trees, leaving a bare trunk for about the first six feet but providing full leaf cover higher up. Phillyrea latifolia, Ligustrum lucidum, Portuguese laurel (Prunus lusitanica) and holm oak (Quercus ilex) all lend themselves to this treatment, according to architecturalplants.com, as do beech and hornbeam.
6. Space dividers
Separating the space in a garden with screening creates a sense of intrigue and usually has the effect of making the whole plot appear larger than it is. Rustic pole screening or trellising, with an opening or archway in it, helps to frame and soften the view of your outdoor space and draw visitors to explore beyond. It can also be used for privacy – to shield a seating area from prying eyes of neighbours, or encircle a space where you want to dine out.
7. Garden walls
Stone or brick walls may be costly, but the sense of permanence they offer to a garden scheme is unrivalled. Dry-stone walling works well in a rural setting. If mortared joints are used, ensure they are as subtle as possible to blend with the stone. Encourage moss and lichen to colonise the stones or introduce rambling plants such as nasturtiums to drape over them and add colour.
8. Edible screens
If you need a screen between the more ornamental parts of your plot and the vegetable garden, or to provide privacy, there is no reason why it shouldn’t earn its keep by being productive. Espaliered fruit trees, such as apple, pear and quince, are a good option, providing blossom in spring and a space-saving way of growing fruit. A training system of taut horizontal wires will help to establish the framework and pruning is needed in late summer. A hedge can be edible, too. Try hazels (food writer and grower Mark Diacono at otterfarm.co.uk recommends Corylus avellana ‘Webbs Prize Cobb’), elder and Rosa rugosa for its hips (to make jam or jelly).
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