Five Screening Plants To Use For Privacy

If you’ve managed to finally create a backyard oasis, then screening plants is a means to help ensure that it remains your own little private sanctuary. 

The role of our garden, backyard or outdoor areas have changed dramatically over the course of the last two years, and having a green space to call your own has certainly taken centre stage. Whether you were one of the many that tried their hands at growing a veggie patch, or perhaps renovated your pergola or verandah, our gardens have become our portal to nature and ultimately a place to withdraw to as a means to get away from it all. 

However, there’s nothing worse than a nosy neighbour or a curious passerby on the street to shatter this illusion that you’ve no doubt worked so hard to create. As such, the demand for screening plants and fast growing privacy trees have shot through the roof to help protect beloved residential sanctuaries – so what are a few of the most popular options?

Your Guide To Popular Screening Plants

The many varieties of screening plants don’t just make the perfect natural barriers between homes in densely populated residential areas, they also block the noise from your neighbour and the street. However, selecting the right types of fast growing privacy trees usually boils down to your climate, their growth rate, and your own personal preference. Once you’ve done your research, a few of the most popular varieties used in Australia usually include the following. 

Lilly Pilly – With their glossy green leaves, small maroon edible berries, colourful flowers, and new growth that features a pink flush of colour, lilly pillies have been one of the most popular fast growing privacy trees for decades. Growing anywhere between three and five metres tall, hedges should be trimmed when they are in full bloom or just after flowering. Lilly pillies also prefer full sun in cooler climates as opposed to tropical conditions. 

Bamboo Screening – Provided that you opt for a non-invasive clumping variety, bamboo screening is one of the go to privacy plants for many Australians. With options such as gracilis, goldstripe, boniopsis, Chinese dwarf and more, these fast growing species with bright green canes and beautiful foliage can be used to block out the neighbours, cover a fence, create a noise barrier, make a windbreak, or even fill a gap in the garden. 

Mock Orange – Growing up to four metres high, mock orange plants are a popular go-to for hedges and privacy screens thanks to it’s fast growing dark green leaves and abundance of orange scented white flowers. Although it’s known to respond extremely well to trimming and pruning, it’s not very frost tolerant and may suffer damage in cold climates or areas with a lot of shade. As such, they’re commonly spotted in Queensland. 

Leighton Green – If you prefer conifers as your go-to variety for privacy plants, then the ever popular Leighton Green can grow up to fifteen metres in height. While it’s for this reason that they’re often used as windbreakers on larger properties, they can also be trimmed into a hedge for smaller scale environments. Frost-hardy and drought-tolerant, they prefer well-drained soils and are known to be particularly fond of full sun or partly shaded areas. 

Bottle Brush – Renowned for their hardiness, this extremely popular Australian native is a great low maintenance tree that can be used as privacy plants, as they thrive in most areas and can grow up to a whopping ten metres high. Not only are they ultra easy to take care of, but they can also help to encourage native birds, bees and a medley of other locals that can help to ensure that your garden is a happy and self-sustaining ecosystem. 

In order to keep your screening plants healthy and requiring little to no maintenance, try to embrace forward thinking and proactive measures instead of reactive ones, especially when it comes to things like watering, weeding, fertilising and tackling pests. As such, one of the most effective means to do so is to ensure that the soil in your garden is at its best. 

Optimise Your Garden Soil The Natural Way 

Do your plants – and yourself – a favour, and give them a head start by optimising your soil prior to planting. By adding a natural plant food like Biotic Booster, this will help your garden to: 

• Provide essential nutrients and microbes 
• Act as a liquid fertiliser to unlock your soil’s potential 
• Drought proof your plants and lower water consumption
• Increase and speed up the germination process
• Assist in protecting your plants from pests and diseases 
• Provide a natural solution that’s safe to use around your herbs, fruit and veggies

If you’re ready to take the leap into improving the health of your plants while minimising the use of chemical based fertilisers, then it may be time to try plant food and plant probiotics. Our Ultimate Garden Health Pack includes our Biotic Booster, FP-60 Probiotic Spray, RE-250 Soil Energiser, plant food and plant probiotics. In each concentrated bottle, millions of natural bacterias are waiting to find a new home in your garden.

Here at Bioweed, we specialise in environmentally friendly gardening products, including herbicides, plant food and plant probiotics, and natural alternatives to traditional gardening solutions. Should you have any questions about how to improve the sustainability of your garden, get in touch with us today.