A garden is a place to escape from the pressures of day-to-day life. If you’re looking for the best garden privacy ideas to help you achieve this goal, you’ve come to the right place. Fencing plays an important role in privacy and security, so read on as we discuss the best fences for privacy, including privacy fence topper ideas to neatly raise the height of your fencing.
Creating your very own private oasis
If you are lucky enough to have some outside space, using every bit of that space to its best advantage makes sense. Imagine creating some additional outdoor living space, a calm seating area, outdoor entertaining or children's play area, a BBQ station, a meditation spot, or maybe even a private area for nude yoga.
Okay, maybe not - nude yoga might be a stretch, but you get the idea. You could use garden screening as a feature or an important part of your garden design.
Garden privacy ideas
Creating a retreat within your garden is possible no matter your budget or the size of your garden. You can make massive changes or adjust how your garden is used by adding the best fences for privacy or adding to the fences you have by adding privacy fence toppers. With some creative thinking and some original garden privacy ideas, we can help you enjoy some zen even if you live in the middle of a busy town or city.
Fence toppers
Most gardens have fences already, so you have a boundary to work with. To ensure complete privacy, you could expand with some trellis and fence toppers to increase the height of your fences to shield your garden or outdoor space from prying eyes. Sadly, being overlooked for most people living in busy urban areas is a reality, so privacy fencing is a must.
Work-from-home outdoor space
Imagine using a couple of garden fence panels to screen off an area in your garden and create a work-from-home outdoor space. Or if you are feeling creative, an outdoor kitchen or BBQ station, even having a safe place for ’children to play, can make a huge difference to your life.
Garden screening ideas
If you prefer a more traditional garden, you can screen off areas and create a private space by using arbours, pergolas or arches. Simply draping any of these with outdoor hard-wearing fabrics or climbing plants will further increase privacy and seclusion.
More good news is that if you have an unsightly area or a man cave (shed) that needs garden screening, an arbour and a few carefully selected garden fence panels can become a focal point, dividing areas of the garden into separate garden rooms/areas.
Garden screening ideas also extend to the front garden or off-street parking area, allowing you to create garden screens for your house so that you do not have to look at your vehicle or the road, and neighbours cannot see you coming and going. Fencing can create garden screens around your bin store and protect your property. Moreover, fencing can create a usable private area if your only outside space adjoins the street, which is handy to have when the weather warms up.
Best fences for privacy: features and options
Renewing your boundary fences regularly is a practical privacy idea, but privacy garden screening as a feature requires a creative way of thinking and requires different styles of fence panels in the construction. Open slatted fence panels are perfect for dividing your garden in a stylish way without obstructing views; they are great for a child's play area so that you can keep an eye on the activities without turning your garden into an adventure playground.
Horizontal fence panels are attractive and can be used to create a living wall or a secondary boundary around your garden; they are attractive and practical while offering a unique look. Horizontal fence panels can look elegant alongside regular closeboard fence panels; you can plant greenery along the horizontal privacy fence to create a juxtaposition between modern and classic design.
Decorative fence panels do what they say in the name; decorate - if you fancy a decorative focal point, using an ornamental fence panel creates an immediate point of interest without much outlay or extensive gardening work involved. Other decorative elements you could incorporate into your garden include artworks, mirrors, murals, etc. that create focal points and draw attention away from other more private garden areas.
Pick a design with a natural shape for a garden fence that blends seamlessly into your garden or outdoor space. Mother nature does not generally offer up neat lines, so for a fence to feel like part of the garden, using different sized decorative panels and overlapping them will add texture and interest.
Innovative privacy fence topper ideas
Boundary fences are usually six feet tall and solid in composition, blocking most views from the ground level. You should not go any taller, as enclosed fences may have a shrinking effect on your space. If you require extra height, you can add 12 to 18 inches of fence topper, adding privacy while minimising the visual impact of a taller solid garden fence.
If your boundary is a garden wall and not an opaque fence, you can add a fence topper to the wall to offer privacy and make your garden wall a feature. A fence topper gives climbing plants somewhere to latch onto, giving the brick or rendered wall a much greener and appealing overall appearance. Another of our privacy fence topper ideas is to install wall planters into the brickwork (rather than at the top) and as the climbing plants rise, they will create extra privacy at the top whilst also decorating lower levels of a bland wall.
Installation tips for privacy fences
Below are a range of installation tips, which if followed will help to ensure your fencing project is a success:
- Installing on sloped land - this always creates its own blend of problems. You need to achieve a horizontal line, and this is best achieved by cutting barge or gravel boards to size
- Keep panels off the ground - even where you are buying high-quality pressure treated panels for long-term viability, the panels need to be kept off the ground. With ground contact comes moisture, exposure to burrowing insects and more contact with rodents. We recommend the use of barge or gravel boards to raise panels by a minimum of 50mm off the ground
- Seek professional advice (if you need it) - fencing is a skilled profession, and most of us do not have the skills or inclination to erect a garden fence; if this is you, it is best to get a professional fencer in to install your privacy fence for the best results
- Time of year – Although it is possible to build a garden fence all year round, avoiding hot, freezing, or wet weather conditions is ideal. This will cause the least disturbance to plant and soil health and make installation a much more pleasant experience. The best months to install in the UK are around early spring or late autumn
- Use rust-resistant fence fittings - exterior grade rust-resistant screws, brackets and other fence fittings are needed for long-term use in your outdoor space
- Use treated fencing products - always use treated fencing products:
- Pressure treated - if your budget allows, pressure treated garden fence panels, posts, and fence toppers are the preference as they will endure for many years and are supplied with long-term guarantees
- Dip treated – these are still high-quality but need annual retreatment with a wood preservative to retain their tip-top condition
Maintenance for lasting privacy
Garden fence maintenance goes with the gardening territory. However, it is possible to choose materials like pressure treated fence panels (as discussed above) that have enhanced timber treatment forced into the wood for longevity. Saying that, our ‘cheap garden fence panels’ (we like to call them inexpensive) combine high-quality materials and construction with low prices. Most of our dip treated fencing panels have a 10 year anti-rot guarantee when re-treated annually.
If you need fuss-free fencing for lasting privacy, speak to one of our trained specialists, who are always happy to advise you, no matter your requirements.
Conclusion: your sanctuary at home
We do not need to tell you that your home is your sanctuary but want to remind you that your solace and privacy can be interrupted by prying eyes. That is why we specialise in garden privacy ideas; with our years of knowledge and expertise, no space is too small or complicated to tackle.
Make the most of your garden or outdoor space and create a secluded oasis efficiently and quickly with the clever use of the best fences for privacy and innovative fence toppers. Delivering that ‘Zen’ feeling to your home has never been so easy.
Contact us
Buy Fencing Direct is tasked with making the UK’s garden private. We take your privacy very seriously, so why not call us and chat about your requirements? The friendly folks at our UK call centre are solution experts with a vast amount of knowledge. They like nothing more than problem solving. Call today at 0333 003 0515 or visit the website by clicking here.