Creating Your Peaceful Retreat- Landscaping for Privacy

There are many factors we face creating privacy within our landscape, from buffering sound, preventing trespassing, creating windbreaks, reducing noise pollution, keeping unwanted wildlife at bay to screening unwanted views.  Over the years I have been able to create innovative ways that can help you create your sense of space and a peaceful retreat, even in small space areas.

Our greenspace areas have always been that one place we long to keep life’s everyday disturbances to a minimum; a place to feel protected and our retreat from the aspects of the modern world.  Creative ideas will turn your landscape into an extension of your home, whether it is an urban courtyard or a 10,000 square feet corner of your property, through thoughtful design, not quick fixes, there are sustainable and obtainable solutions that fit in seamlessly.

When buffering is accomplished correctly, it will create the impression of distance, an illusion of separation and reflect your personal style.  Vegetation layering, maximizing conifers and deciduous trees will create seasonal color, textures and privacy.  Simply changing elevations in your narrow greenspace with rolling berms and boulders instantly creates depth and the sense of buffering and privacy and these are perfect for planting seasonal bulbs, like deer resistant Alliums such as ‘Purple Sensation’, ‘Mars’ and ‘Gladiator’.  Utilizing planting vessels is another solution to establish screening and privacy while expressing your creativity and adding color to small space areas.  Groupings of colorful vessels with billowing Hydrangea spp. will mask noise and offer you the luxury of seasonal cut flowers.

In areas where larger space is available to create privacy, small space, mounding evergreen plants such as Pittosporum tenuifolium, Ilex crenata ‘Northern Beauty’ and Chamaecyparis obtuse offer many flexible and interesting colors and textures.  These are perfect plants for maintaining sightline corridors or as understory of trees, as they typically will not grow above 4’ in height.

There are other ways to help buffer road noise pollution such as an energy efficient low flow water element mixed amongst evergreen screening, such as Pinus flexalis ‘Vanderwolf’.  A properly placed water feature, located near the main ‘listeners’ area, such as outside the master bedroom window or somewhere positioned between you and the unwanted noise, creates peace and tranquility in small urban settings while removing unwanted noise.

Solutions for reducing fauna and other trespassers without constructing overwhelming and cumbersome wood fences would include trellises and arbors, maximizing wonderful vines such as Clematis, Lonicera, and Wisteria species.  Espalier ‘living walls’ using Pyracantha ‘Government Red’ provides a narrow, yet dense wall producing a food source for birds in the fall and winter.    In milder climates, planting a thicket of Optunia will deter intruders while adding architectural interest and wonderful color when they are in bloom.

For a complete list of versatile plants for small space screening, please contact me at eric@florapacifica.com