Privacy, Please
Not everyone can afford a house with a panoramic view of the mountains or ocean, or a lot large enough to be 100 yards from the nearest neighbor. But that doesn’t mean we are doomed to life in a fishbowl with a view of the neighbors’ living room.
A private paradise can be created in even the tiniest of yards with the clever placement of plants. Trees and shrubs can block everything from the telephone pole in the corner to the two-story house next door.
“It’s really important to create a private niche, especially with our busy lifestyles,” says Jeff Powers, co-owner of Earthscaping Designs in Laguna Beach. “Viewing neighbors’ roofs or second-story additions can destroy our sense of place. It’s also important to privacy to block out sight lines to neighbors’ windows and cars parked in driveways.”
Creating privacy isn’t difficult. If budgets allow, it can be as simple as hiring a landscape architect. For those who want to do it themselves, it takes research and creative planning.
Before anything is planted, though, it’s important to consider all the physical elements of the plants being used.
“The first question you have to answer is, how long are you planning to live at that house?” says Blake Hinman, owner of Lantex landscape architects in San Juan Capistrano. “If you’re only going to live there for a short time, say less than five years, you want faster-growing varieties. If this is it, and you’re going to live and die in this house, there are other plants that may be a bit nicer but slower growing.”
Other considerations include the amount of sun and shade the plants will get, the height of the plant at maturity, the depth of the plant’s roots and the proximity of plants to structures.
“One of the things that you have to do is determine how much space you are screening,” says Cortland Paul, owner of Peridian International in Newport Beach. “A rear yard will need different plants than a 6-foot sideyard. In a 6-foot sideyard, you would want a plant not more than 3 feet in diameter and not more than 6 to 8 feet tall.”
Another plus of using plants to screen is the heights they can reach.
“Where many homeowners associations don’t allow fencing over 6 feet, I am not aware of any law against plant height,” Powers says.
Knowing the depth--or lack thereof--of a plant’s root system is also important to avoid damage from roots pushing up to the surface. An invasive root system could lead to cracked foundations at the worst and unsightly bumps in the lawn at the least.
Deciding how the yard is going to be used will also help determine what plant material to use. If the yard is taken up by a concrete pool, you want to avoid trees or shrubs that drop leaves that would clog the water and filter.
It is also a good idea to think about how much maintenance time you are willing to devote to the yard, according to Hinman.
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If you have a small condominium patio or yard with a view of the neighbors’ wall, don’t despair. Proper placing of plants can hide the wall and add depth to the space. For easy maintenance, choose plants that need to be pruned only once a year; these would be mostly foliage plants with insignificant flowers.
Using rich varieties of color, texture and shape in green foliage can more than make up for the lack of flower color. For bright splashes of color, place large pots of flowering plants in front of the greens.
If vines are your passion, trellises and other garden screens can be added in front of fences or on the top of a fence to allow coverage.
Plants can also be used to reduce the noise from a yard that backs up to a busy street or or a noisy complex. Dense-leaved plants will help reduce the noise and add a psychological barrier to the outside world.
Spanish broom (Spartium junceum) is a native that grows quickly to 6 to 10 feet. It can be a bit gaunt, but pruning will fatten it up. It has a strong, sweet perfume and yellow flowers on long stalks that can bloom from March until the first of winter.
Varying heights and planting in layers will add depth to a yard, giving the illusion of distance.
“Hedging forms a backdrop. . . . That allows you to plant flowers and trees in front to create the illusion that the forest or planting goes on and on,” Powers says.
Most backyards are rectangular, so when designing landscape to screen out unwanted sights, it’s important not to echo the boxiness of the yard, says Ann Christoph, a landscape architect from South Laguna. “Use free forms in the hardscape--the patio paving or pool, spa or barbecue. Curving lines instead of rectangular shapes create places to put screening material of different sizes.”
The trick in using plants to block out unwanted views is not to box your yard, thus creating a suffocating space instead of a private niche. One visual trick to add more depth to the yard is to plant so there is a diagonal view of the plants “because it’s a longer dimension and you can get the feeling of more space,” Christoph says.
If there is a deck, put the plants at an angle so your eyes look across the yard.
Use receding dark colors on fencing to make the fence disappear among the plants. And design a plant screening with at least two layers, again to add depth.
The types of plants to use range widely depending on the yard’s physical attributes and the homeowner’s devotion to gardening.
Powers often chooses California native plants--along with plants from other Mediterranean climates--when designing a garden because of their beauty and drought tolerance.
“For instance, South Africa and South America offer a unique plant palette. We use plants from those regions interchangeably with our own California natives,” Powers says.
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One of the backdrop plants he likes to use is Myrica californica from Northern California. Appropriate in a garden condition where it will get regular water, Myrica is a good choice because it has the same blue-green color in January or July.
“Toyon is good companion choice and typically requires a lot less water,” Powers says. “In July you get beautiful white flowers followed by berries that attract birds.”
Toyon can also be used as a hedge. With a light pruning every year, you can have a plant that is 4 to 12 feet tall.
Rhus integrifolia is another native hedge choice. Commonly called lemonade berry because the berries can be steeped into a lemony tasting beverage, Rhus can grow up to 10 feet and is slower growing than toyon. It can also be pruned and kept at 3 to 4 feet.
“Or you can use them together with lemonade berry up front and toyon in back,” Powers says.
Coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia), usually a large tree, can be trimmed to a hedge, according to Powers, as long as mature limbs are not cut, which could kill the plant.
“If you start when they are small and shear little branches, it makes a wonderful hedge that could get to 20 feet tall in time,” he says.
The fern pine (Podocarpus gracilior) is another good hedging plant. Native to East Africa, it is slow growing but extremely drought tolerant. The fern pine can also be grown as an espaliered vine. Its very dense foliage is a soft gray-to-blue green, and it does well in shade or sun.
Some jobs dictate faster-growing varieties.
“We have what we call flash plants [that] grow quickly and achieve the job in a hurry. Myoporum is a good example of a plant that grows fast,” Paul says.
Use that plant in a case where you want a 6- to 8-foot tree in two to three years. You can use flash plants as temporary screens while the slow-growing species you may prefer are reaching maturity.
Paul’s backyard is only 30 feet deep, so using the concept of flash planting to quickly screen out his neighbors was important.
“Maybe one of the reasons suburbia has been so successful in terms of people wanting to live there is they can screen out their neighbors and create a postage-stamp paradise not invaded by outside eyes,” Paul says.
