Other than cry, what do you do when your neighbour decides to cut down the row of trees that has provided you with total privacy in your garden for the last 20 years??
And you are now faced with being overlooked by their house, their garden and bedroom window??
Gutted.
I know there are far worse things that can happen and, in the scheme of things, it’s really not the end of the world.
But to us, our garden has always been our haven, a place to escape to for complete seclusion, safe in the knowledge that we can enjoy total privacy without prying eyes. This has always been paramount for us and was an absolute selling point when buying our home.
So it’s been an adjustment. To say the least.
But also a challenge.
How were we going to be able to make the best out of this ‘intrusion’ into our garden and reclaim as much of our privacy as possible?
To be fair, our original 4ft high fence panels had looked a little worse for wear for a while but we had made do as we had the trees. But with the issue being forced, we invested in some decent sized 6ft panels for added height – see Rowlinson 6×6 Pressure Treated Traditional Lap Panels
And to make them more of a feature, I painted them a lovely Seagrass colour from the Cuprinol range
With the concrete gravel boards raising the fence panels off the ground, away from any damp soil, immediately we already had a good sized screen between us and our neighbours.
But I didn’t want to leave it there. So we created further height by fixing 1ft high trellis panels to the tops of the fence panels.
I added a splash of colour with hanging plant pots from the tops of the fence panels filled with ivy and honeysuckle which I have trained to grow over the trellis for added cover.
It has to be said, we are rather pleased with how it all looks. And the one bonus of not having the trees is how it has opened up the garden, how much lighter it is, and how much more sun we now have at the end of the afternoon!
It does feel like we now have a decent screen between us and our neighbours and some semblance of privacy has returned.
The window overlooking the garden is still a massive bugbear of mine and is something I will never be totally happy with. But I’m trying to be positive and have been visiting the local garden centres looking for a couple of trees to plant strateigically in our border which, in time, will screen us further from our neighbours and cover as much of the window as possible.
And by adding some solar powered twinkly lights to the trellis, I do think we have made the best of a bad lot and this new border between us and our neighbours is actually a rather lovely feature for our garden.
