Vegetable Screens

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Vegetable screens will hide you and your home from prying eyes and noise

When planning a garden, the owner of a suburban area has to solve many problems at the same time: determining the main viewpoints, organizing lighting, choosing fruitful crops and ground cover plants … In addition, it often becomes necessary to fence off a busy road, isolate from the gaze of neighbors or hide objects such as a compost a pile, a barn and other buildings for household purposes.

If instead of a capital fence on the border between the sites, you plant flowering shrubs or trees, the neighbors will only be grateful to you. Such plantings will successfully hide your garden from prying eyes, protect it from winds in winter, and from dust and annoying noise in summer.

To hedge best to use the fast-growing trees and shrubs. Some deciduous shrubs, for example, grow to the required size within just a few seasons. Small shrubs with delicate leaves look good near the house or terrace, creating a reliable natural screen. You can add fragrant flowers in containers to them, which will add to the feeling of peace, privacy and give the garden a special beauty.

And, of course, beautiful bushes are indispensable in creating such fences - roses, rhododenrons, lilacs, honeysuckle, hydrangea, weigela, cinquefoil, currant, forsythia, chokeberry, Japanese quince, willow, elderberry, spirea, snowberry, viburnum, hawthorn, magonia and many others.

Climbing plants and lianas also play an important role in landscaping: clematis, climbing roses, maiden grapes, cultivated grapes, actinidia, lemongrass, sweet peas, ornamental pumpkins, morning glory, echinocystis, honeysuckle (honeysuckle and Brown), hops. Their main advantage is height and growth rate. To decorate the walls of a house, garage or shed with them, you just need to pull on strong cords or wires. Also, as a support for vines, you can use any dried tree, old raspberry branches, lattice from planks, poles, poles, water pipes, hoops or even pieces of plastic hoses.

Construction of garden structures

This is far from the fastest and easiest way to hide the unattractive corners of the garden from prying eyes, but if you do decide to do this work, then you will have truly huge opportunities for creativity. In addition to the role of the fence, various structures will also perform many other useful functions. Greenery gates, for example, can be very beautiful without losing their functionality. They block the entrance to the site or fence off the patio. A straight fence can also separate the front of the garden from the back or side.

While the appearance of ornamental plants changes with the seasons, capital structures are an invariable part of the design, creating the backbone and focal points of the garden. These can include arches, gates, steps, drinkers and bird feeders, and benches. Free-standing or surrounded by a trellis entwined with vines, the bench can become the centerpiece of the garden. For children, you can use climbing plants to build a wonderful green room in which they can play in complete safety. A structure designed for play should retain heat well and be on the sunny side.

To avoid destruction and unexpected collapses of your structures, you should accurately calculate the load on each structure: the weight of shoots and foliage, the possible wind pressure. The structure itself should not be conspicuous, so it should be painted in neutral tones: gray or gray-green. Wooden parts are usually not painted at all, but only treated with hot linseed oil or other antiseptic.

Trellises, gazebos, awnings

A simple trellis made from old raspberry branches will make a good structure for annual climbing plants. The same lattice made of planks is also suitable for perennials. They are easy to make supports from a pole and twine in the form of pyramids, cones, fans. Such sweet pea pyramids placed on lawns are very popular with many gardeners.

No special devices are required to create a flowering garland near the porch or near the windows - just pull on strong cords or wires. Such decorations always create a joyful mood. The effect will be further enhanced by a bird feeder and a decorative lantern located here. Any dried tree can also become a reliable support for vines.

The most difficult of the garden structures are the pergola and the gazebo. Covered with climbing plants, they transform into wonderful green rooms. The choice of crops for planting them depends on the climatic conditions. Most commonly used are girlish grapes, hops, and honeysuckle.

To create plant screens, undersized trees (decorative forms and hybrids) are recommended: apple trees, turf trees, various varieties of hazel (up to 2 - 3 m high), bushy plums, laurel cherries, almonds, and legumes. You can also use Japanese maples - slow growing shrubs with beautiful color and leaf shape. Evergreen conifers are also perfect - thuja, hemlock, spruce and others.

Wonderful view from the window

You can appreciate the beauty and variability of the garden just by looking at it from the window, therefore, when planning the future landscape, it is necessary to provide an interesting view from each window and a good angular view. This is especially important for those owners of suburban real estate who live outside the city permanently and work in the house, on the veranda or in the kitchen.

Do not forget about creating a beautiful background, which will serve as a background for plant compositions located near the house. And if you want to see early flowering plants from the windows, then they should be planted at a certain distance, which can provide a good view from all sides.

Garden design

The garden plan should be interesting in all seasons. Therefore, the plants must be chosen appropriate. Dogwood, for example, pleases gardeners with beautiful flowers in spring, creates an excellent carpet in autumn, and in winter surprises with its bright color of the bark and bizarre crown shapes. Other evergreens behave like it. For example, Japanese euonymus. In summer, this bush is covered with red bells, and throughout winter and spring it decorates the garden with its dark green shiny foliage.

Kalina is an unpretentious plant that does not require special care. In May, snow-white (less often cream) spherical inflorescences, consisting of small flowers, appear on it. They are replaced by beautiful greens in summer, purple leaves in autumn and clusters of red berries that adorn the garden in winter. Low varieties of viburnum are used as ground cover plants, high ones - for creating hedges or specimen plantings. Often these plants are placed in a mixed border near the house. Viburnum provides food for wintering birds and serves them as a good refuge.

Some plants, such as cold-tolerant crocuses or rhododendrons, are prudent to place near a house or path in order to see them at close range. Other flower plants look better from afar.

Also, keep in mind that cyan, magenta, and dark colors fade with increasing distance. White accents stand out brightest against the general background. For example, even a narrow path in a shady garden between a stream of white Iberis flowers and a golden alyssum near or around the house, around the patio, can be a key piece of garden design. And planting Drummond phlox, host or ornamental grasses have an unusually pleasant soothing effect.

Tamara Barkhatova

Photo by Olga Rubtsova and E. Valentinov