Your garden should feel like your own private sanctuary — a place to relax, entertain, and unwind without feeling on display. Whether you’re overlooked by neighbours, exposed to a busy road, or simply want to create a more intimate outdoor space, there are plenty of stylish and effective ways to add privacy to your garden.
At CHS Landscapes, we design and build beautiful outdoor spaces across Sussex, and privacy is one of the most common requests we receive from our clients. Here are eight of our favourite solutions.
1. Pleached Trees
For a sophisticated, structured look, pleached trees are hard to beat. Trained to grow on a flat plane with interlacing lateral branches, they create an elegant “hedge on stilts” effect — screening your garden at exactly the right height without taking up too much ground space. Popular choices include hornbeam, beech, and lime, all of which work beautifully in formal and contemporary garden designs.
2. Decorative Screens and Panels
A well-placed decorative screen can transform a garden almost instantly. Laser-cut Corten steel panels, timber slatted screens, or woven willow panels all offer a stylish way to block unwanted sightlines while adding a strong design feature. At CHS Landscapes, we can design and install bespoke screening solutions that complement your garden’s style perfectly.
3. Layered Planting
One of the most natural-looking approaches to garden privacy is layered planting — combining climbers, tall ornamental grasses, and multi-stem trees to build up screens with real depth and texture. Evergreen climbers like star jasmine or Clematis armandii trained over a pergola or trellis offer year-round cover, while tall grasses such as Miscanthus add graceful movement and a softer, more relaxed feel.
4. Fast-Growing Hedging
A well-established hedge is one of the most effective and attractive privacy solutions available. For quicker results, species like laurel, hornbeam, and leylandii alternatives such as Thuja ‘Green Giant’ can put on impressive growth each year. We can advise on the best hedging species for your soil, aspect, and desired look, and handle all planting and establishment work for you.
5. A Sunken Seating Area
If you’re looking for something a little different, a sunken seating area — often called a conversation pit — is a fantastic way to create a naturally secluded space in your garden. By dropping the level of a seating zone below the surrounding garden, you create an intimate, cocooning feel. Surrounding planting, raised walls, or sleeper edging all enhance the sense of seclusion further.
6. A Pergola with Enclosed Sides
A pergola alone offers overhead cover, but adding side panels, planting, or retractable screens takes it to another level. With the right design, a pergola can become a true outdoor room — private, sheltered, and beautifully planted. This is one of our most popular landscape features and works brilliantly in gardens of all sizes.
7. Moveable Planters
For a more flexible approach, large planters on castors filled with tall grasses, bamboo, or climbing plants on integrated trellises can be repositioned to screen different areas as needed. This is a particularly practical solution for patios, terraces, and urban gardens where permanent structures aren’t always possible.
8. Water Features
Privacy isn’t just visual — it’s also about sound. A well-placed water feature, whether a sleek water wall, a bubble fountain, or a naturalistic pond, introduces the soothing sound of running water that helps mask noise from neighbours, traffic, and the wider world. It also draws the eye inward, shifting focus to the beauty of your own garden rather than what lies beyond it.
Ready to Create Your Perfect Private Garden?
At CHS Landscapes, we specialise in designing and building outdoor spaces that are as practical as they are beautiful. From hedging and planting to bespoke structures and full garden redesigns, we’d love to help you create a garden you can truly escape to.
Get in touch today for a free consultation.
