Even a relatively small garden, with the necessary privacy, offers the potential for relaxing in the fresh air in the countryside. Perennials can be an interesting alternative to stone walls and evergreen privacy hedges as privacy screens.
Which perennials are suitable as privacy screens in the garden?
Perennials as privacy screens are a cost-effective and easy-care alternative to stone walls or hedges. Suitable perennials for privacy protection are lupins, autumn asters, cosmos and feather poppies, which reach a height of at least 120 cm and make the garden attractive.
Advantages of perennials over other privacy protection options
The construction of stone walls or wooden privacy walls as well as the planting of property borders made of tall trees as privacy protection are not only associated with high costs, but often also raise questions regarding approval or neighborhood law. On the other hand, the purchase costs for the young plants of various types of perennials are relatively low and they do not grow over the hobby gardener's head as easily as various types of flowering shrubs. While a shrub, thuja or spruce hedge can become two meters or more wide as it gets older, perennials can be cultivated as privacy screens on a relatively limited area with a width of around half a meter. Perennial plants with “herbaceous growth” are characterized by the fact that their above-ground plant mass usually dies in autumn and the plant then sprouts completely new from the rhizome or tubers in spring. However, since most gardens are hardly used in winter anyway, no significant privacy protection is usually needed during the winter months.
Plants with perennial growth that are suitable as privacy screens
While low perennials can serve as a privacy screen in the balcony box, the perennial varieties selected for natural privacy protection in the garden should reach a height of 120 cm or more. However, many types of perennials reach this height very quickly and much faster than annual climbing plants due to the roots that have already grown together at the location. The following perennials are particularly popular as seasonal privacy screens:
- Lupins
- Autumn Star
- Cosmoses
- Feather Poppies
Onion plants such as dahlias also grow like perennials, but in most cases they have to be dug up for overwintering.
Combine privacy concerns with an attractive perennial bed
Perennial beds are an ideal way to make a garden area permanently visually attractive with little maintenance through varied foliage colors and alternating flowering times. It is common practice to use different types of perennials in different heights. So place the tallest perennials at the far edge of the property border or the edge of the bed, then the medium-high perennials in front of them and then the low-growing perennials in front of them.
Tip
Many species of perennials, such as the feather poppy, tend to multiply relatively quickly once they have established themselves in a suitable location. You should take this into account not only when planting along the garden border, but also when determining the planting distance in a perennial bed.
