Garden screening plants – what works, what’s new & how to choose

Looking for the best trees and plants for garden screening? Guy Watts of Architectural Plants has expert tips on choosing and maintaining privacy screening plants for any garden size.

00:00 Why choose planting screening plants?
00:40 Architectural Plants: https://www.architecturalplants.com/
01:14 Where to start when planning garden screening
02:50 Favourite styles of plants for screening – pleached, standard, multi-stem or fastigiate
04:49 When to plant garden screening plants
05:20 How to maintain newly planted screening plants
09:33 Can you have garden screening plants in pots?
10:40 What’s the biggest mistake people make when using screening plants.
11:48 New trends in screening plants
13:29 Fastigiate (upright) trees for screening
14:33 Guy’s top screening trees: Pleached Portuguese laurel (Brunelia) & Upright Hornbeam
15:46 Holly standards
16:52 Magnolia grandiflora – pleached, standard or on a frame
17:50 Elaeagnus ebbingeii – pleached, on a frame or as a hedge
18:55 Liquidambar on a frame
19:21 Upright hornbeam ‘Frans Fontaine’

Want more privacy in your garden? In this video, I visit Guy Watts of Architectural Plants to find out the best garden screening plants for blocking neighbours’ windows, hiding ugly views and creating private garden rooms.
We cover: 🌿 The difference between **evergreen and deciduous screening plants**
🌿 How to combine different types of screening plants for a stylish garden 🌿 How to plant screening trees for long-term success
🌿 Guy’s most popular privacy screening plants right now (and a few to avoid!)
🌿 Expert tips on watering, mulching and maintaining your screening plants

Whether you want to screen off a terrace, divide your garden into sections, or simply add year-round privacy, these are the top screening plants and trees to choose.

If you have a middle-sized garden (bigger than a courtyard, smaller than an acre), follow the Middlesized Garden for more tips, ideas and inspiration just for you.

📌 Watch next: The Answers to the 3 Most Common Garden Privacy Questions: https://youtu.be/LwW5zF5phmQ

📌 Read more on the blog: https://www.themiddlesizedgarden.co.uk/how-choose-best-garden-screening-plants/

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The Middlesized Garden Complete Guide to Garden Privacy is available in Kindle or paperback in 13 countries (in English only). If you’d like your garden to feel more private, click here for availability in your country: https://www.themiddlesizedgarden.co.uk/books/the-complete-guide-to-garden-privacy/

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Would you like to increase your garden privacy? 
Or perhaps you just want to block an ugly view, or divide up your garden into rooms without using 
a great big thick blocky hedge. It’s Alexandra here from The Middle-Sized Garden YouTube channel 
and blog. And I went down to Architectural Plants in Sussex to talk to the MD Guy Watts about what’s 
new in garden screening plants, how to use them. And he’s going to tell us also his seven favourite 
garden screening plants. I started by asking him what people are looking for in terms of screening 
plants. Yeah, to be honest with you, about 90% of our customers come to us for screening. So, it’s 
a huge part of what we do. Often, they’ve maybe moved to a new house and they’re trying to maybe 
block out some of the windows of neighbouring properties that can look in. It may well be that 
someone’s putting a planning application in and in the long term they’re imagining buildings being 
there. So it’s often people and neighbours. But we’ve also, you know, been exposed to companies 
being next door to gardens and even companies needing screening. So it can be anything, but 
it also could be internal to a garden – where maybe someone is trying to screen off a pool. 
So they create almost areas within a garden using screens. We start by asking things around 
how high is the, say, fence or the wall, because sometimes that helps with regarding how high the 
tree needs to be. So that’s a really good starting place. The other thing is we start thinking 
about context. So if you’re putting them in, as far away as possible from the house, they need 
to be bigger. You can also get away with bringing them closer to you. So distance from the house 
is important. Clear stem height’s important. And then we start asking questions around whether it’s 
an evergreen or deciduous. So evergreens are best used when someone is trying to get all year round 
screening. I like to use deciduous plants when you want that lovely colour change in the autumn, 
but also perhaps you’re not in the garden as much, or it’s a very dark garden, and so therefore in 
the winter you would like lots more light because it’s a deciduous plant. The basic rule in my mind 
is that you want to be able to maintain the plant in the longer term. So we always try and get them 
to plant plants slightly off the fence line so that you can always get to both and all sides of 
the tree. That’s quite important just from a long, you know, a long-term maintenance plan. And my 
understanding in most areas is that you’re able to plant on boundaries and screening as long as it’s 
in your grounds and it’s not spilling over to the neighbours. And that’s why that distance off the 
boundary is quite important. But obviously always check local areas. And if you’re in a listed 
property or somewhere with TPO’s, then you just need to be careful around root bases if you’re 
digging holes with a TPO tree. So one that’s essentially listed and should be protected. And in 
terms of the right plants for screening, what are the favourites that you find yourself recommending 
again and again? So it’s sort of on trends to have pleached trees. And our pleached trees are very 
thin. They’re on a frame. Most often they are six foot clear stem, 1.2 meters wide, and high 
as the head. And that’s because they sit very nicely over a fence or over a wall. And again, 
most customers we’re finding are seeing those on Instagram, and they work very well because they’re 
thinner. So that allows you to – in a, certainly, in a small garden – it allows you to have a tree 
and coverage that doesn’t spill into the garden. Personally, I’m always trying to get customers to 
buy trees that are just standards with a circular sort of ball-shaped head, like a lollipop, because 
I think plants are much happier in the longer term being grown like that. And over time, you allow 
them to grow out and essentially look like a hedge on stills. And then you go into deciduous. So, it 
could be very traditional carpinus or beech – if you want to have a bit of sort of brown colouring 
throughout the winter. So it just depends on the garden, the house, and what sort of style you’re 
going for. What about that row of conifers that people used to do in the 1970s? What’s your 
view on that? Yes, we don’t sell leylandii, and we haven’t for 30 years. So it’s a no no from 
us. Although it can be – if you have a property where it’s already there, as long as someone’s 
clipping it absolutely beautifully – it can work really well. But it’s not for us. It’s not 
what we would call an architectural plant. So it doesn’t fit into our category. But again, it’s 
clipped nicely. It could be useful. But you’re tending then to talk about more of a hedge. So 
again, if you’re using screening through hedge, I would be going for yew, which is taxus. Again, 
really good traditional plant. Slow growing, but that means it’s going to be a lower 
cost in terms of maintenance. And of course, you could then still use carpinus and 
beech if you want a deciduous, quite fast, and relatively cheap – if you do it in October 
to March, which is when it’s root-ball season. And that leads me on to….so what’s the best 
time to plant a screening? So, because we’re a container-grown nursery, we plant all year 
round. But if you’re trying to do it in the most affordable way, and you’re looking at hedging and 
that type of screening, October to March is when plants are transplanted from the ground – and it’s 
called root-ball season. So that’s the most sort of economically best time. And also the ground is 
normally wet and ready for the plants to go in. It’s good from that perspective, but we as 
a company plant all year round. Most of our customers want things done fairly quickly, and so 
container growing plants allows us to do that. And in terms of planting in the summer or in hot dry 
weather, you would have to irrigate quite a lot, wouldn’t you? Yeah. So, we’re based on clay 
in this site, although we travel all over the country planting. On clay, we talk about planting 
high. So in the winter, plants – especially woody stem plants – are out of the water. They 
don’t therefore rot, but you then have to be very careful in the summer because that means 
they’re likely to dry out. So, we’ve been hugely big fans of irrigation for the last 25 years. And 
we recommend every garden has it installed. And it also is normally protected by hose pipe bands 
because it’s a point-to-point system. So, it means that you can essentially use it even during a hose 
pipe ban. Again, best to check your local area, but most areas allow it. When you plant a new 
tree, you really have to irrigate it properly for about one to three years in the summer. And is 
it similar with screening and hedging plants? As a general rule, I say the first 18 months to three 
years is critical for trees and plants. So yeah, regular watering is really important. And/or, you 
know, turning the watering off if it’s just rained every day for a week. So it’s not just watering. 
It’s really being aware of the weather. After that, you’d hope that plants would set their, 
you know, their feet down, their roots down, and start to develop on their own. So, yeah, first 
18 months, three years are very important. And I wouldn’t say it’s particularly different 
for screening trees. It’s just as a general rule. And what about fertilizing? Do you have to 
fertilize at all? So, we are now really big fans of mycorrhizal. When we’re planting, we always 
tease the roots out, put lots of mycorrhizal on directly onto the roots. We again use a bit of 
a bed of grit and compost – and we find that’s quite a good combination. The difference with us 
is most of our plants come with a 6 to 9 month food within the soil. They’re osmocote pellets 
essentially. It’s a slow release fertilizer. But if you’re buying plants and you don’t think 
they have that in there, then I recommend a bit of that goes in at the same time of planting – 
if you can. And then the second year you wouldn’t fertilize – you would hope that they had got the 
nutrition from deeper down in the soil. I think I would be more about being visibly looking at what 
the plant’s doing. So, if it’s looking slightly stressed after the first winter, I might start 
thinking about what we could do to stop it being so stressed. Perhaps it got too wet. So, I think 
it’s a sort of certainly for the first 18 months, three years, I’d be really looking at what what 
the plant’s telling you. If it’s dropping leaf or it’s gone yellow, you just got to understand what 
that is. And it can be a combination of, you know, too much water and then someone’s stopped watering 
it. So you just have to be very careful. With mulching, do you have to be a bit careful not 
to take the mulch – you’re mulching the border, say where the screening is – not to take it too 
close to the stems of the trees, because that can sort of rot them a bit. Yeah, it’s a really good 
point. So anything that’s woody – we mentioned earlier about sort of raising up out of the ground 
slightly – we’re doing that because we don’t want them to rot. But it also allows us when we mulch 
the bed, which is really important. Mulching for us is about moisture retention in the soil. It 
helps with weed suppressant. And also we think it looks great. So all those three together is really 
key, but you just got to make sure you don’t bury the stem. So most trees failure is where people 
have buried stems. We sometimes go back to gardens where we’ve planted it and we find someone’s 
mulched an inch over and the tree is will suffer within weeks. So yes to mulching, but just be very 
careful around the stem. Have you got a particular favourite mulch you would use, whether it’s bark, 
or what would you use? Yeah. So we use bark, and we have our own supplier that we really 
trusted over the years, and we know it’s clean material. If we’re selling bark for pots, we use a 
pine mini mulch which is….it’s very sort of red, being from pine. And it’s quite fine, but not 
too fine. So we would be recommending that to customers, to top up once a year, just so 
that it helps again with the soil matter, and it starts to really develop the ground below 
once it starts rotting down. And speaking of pots, what about screening in pots? The plant that 
we used to use, and was very fashionable to use for screening, was bamboo for a long time. 
It’s obviously incredibly invasive – and no matter what you’re told or what you read, 
please know that most bamboos are invasive, even clump-forming ones. So we therefore would 
say if you can control it and manage it in a pot, bamboo is fantastic, because you’re controlling 
its root spread. But you must make sure they’re well watered. You can also put lollipops into 
pots as well. Again, depending on the height of the fence or the wall, they can be used. You 
just got to be a little bit careful with windage, because the higher the plant, the more likely it’s 
going to knock over and smash the pot. But yeah, it’s a great way of doing it in a rental or a 
place where you can’t dig down. And presumably you want a really big solid pot. Absolutely. 
The bigger the better from a point of view of stability, but also because it’s really easy for 
things to dry out in pots. Especially if they’re a darker colour and they attract sun and they get 
warmer, the roots can then warm up and it’s a bit of a disaster really. So, excellent drainage, 
good mulch on the top, and then making sure that they’re watered – whether through an irrigation or 
you just go on such a big pot that you can control it. And what is the biggest mistake that people 
make when they’re doing screening? Really good, good question, because choosing the right plant 
for the right space is really important. Another thing that we really spend a lot of time trying 
to explain to customers is a full standard tends to be six foot clear stem. Now that is not going 
to change. That height will not change. If you just keep clipping the top, the tips are where 
the growth comes. The stem will remain there. It will just get fatter. So an elaeagnus for example 
– that’s a full standard – it will only get bigger if you allow it to from the top. And that’s quite 
important because a lot of customers we found believe that trees grow from the ground – and of 
course they don’t. So that’s the challenge we have to explain. That’s interesting. Yes. And so you 
can keep it to the height you want by continually trimming the top. Absolutely. But again, the 
growth is from the tips, not from the stem. So if you clip it, it won’t get taller. If you allow it 
just to get bigger over time, the clear stem will always remain at that height. Is there a new plant 
that people are using for screening now, that they might not have thought about beforehand – 
something new and exciting that you can recommend? I think certainly from a sort of trend point of 
view, pleached trees were not used as much as they are now. So that’s a huge change from when we 
started 30 years ago. It was all about just loose form trees. I think we’re seeing more and more 
deciduous trees being used as screening, because we’re finding some of our customers are looking 
for that kind of all year round interest. So I’m quite a big fan. I’ve just planted a garden with 
acer globosum which were really good as a kind of screening tree, but they also give that lovely 
autumn colour. And multi-stems. Again you can use a multi-stem that you make sure that you can 
clip the foliage at the point you need screening. But in the garden you’ve still got that lovely 
multi-stem look. So, osmanthus could be used for that. Elaeagnus, prunus, all of those varieties. 
So, yes, that it’s about sort of being a bit more flexible with the type of plant you can use. Have 
you got any kind of good ideas that people might think about – rather than just putting very tall 
trees all around the perimeter? Absolutely. So, we talk about layering. So, you could maybe 
have, if you have a terrace outside, you could use strategically placed pots and plants, and 
that could give you your front line. And then into the garden, you might want to have a specimen 
somewhere maybe within the garden. And then you could always again use your boundaries. For the 
most important places you need to have height. It’s fine plonking all your trees on the sides of 
the garden, but it’s way more interesting having layers and different light capturing different 
types of plants. And it also allows you to open up to different styles of plants because there’s 
likely to be a change of light levels across those different areas. And I think I’ve seen some nice 
fastigiate trees used as screening. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, we love the use of cupressus. 
They’re evergreen of course, and it’s that very Mediterranean feel. If that’s not the right 
sort of fit for a garden or perhaps it’s too wet, then we’ve started using mainly deciduous trees. 
So we’ve had some lovely carpinus fastigiata, which are really lovely, and they add that 
really nice sort of vertical drama in a garden. And again then the options can be – although 
they’re not easy to find – if you get them, there’s quite a variety of plants that can be used 
in that way. There’s a fastigiate quercus – or you know oak tree. So again they’re really quite 
special. And that could be for where you’ve got a particular point that you maybe don’t want 
the plant to get too wide, but it just gives you that lovely upright habit. And again, from 
a design perspective, you could use them in a straight line if you wanted, or as an avenue, but 
you can also use them at different points in the garden to create that level of interest. We often 
use triangles. So, you know, one, two, three. And again with vestigial plants, that’s fantastic 
because you get a differing height away from the building as well. So, shall we have a look at some 
of your best screening trees here at Architectural Plants? Yeah, absolutely. So, let’s do that. So, 
Guy, tell me about these two trees. So, this is a pleached tree. So you can see I’m standing on top 
here. This is roughly six foot clear stem which is what you get on a full standard, but this is 
pleached. With the pleach, it’s that lovely frame. So it gives you something in a smaller garden – 
allows you screening quite fast. Roughly 1.2m wide and high. That’s the standard frame. Portuguese 
laurel. This is the brenelia version which has got really nice red stems and also quite quick 
growth. So it’s really useful. Evergreen. And then of course we got the carpinus fastigiata. 
So fastigiata – meaning very upright – and again really useful if you’re trying to block say a lamp 
post or something that gives you vertical drama in a garden. And it catches the light beautifully. 
But it’s a deciduous plant so it won’t be in full leaf all year. And is it fairly easy to 
look after? Are both of these fairly easy to look after? Yes, this naturally has a fastigiate 
growth. So therefore all you’ve got to do really is just keep it in check, maybe every 3 years, if 
you want it to remain at a small height. Whereas with this, you may want to join it with another 
plant, and so there’s a bit of training there, and you clip this maybe once or twice a year 
to maintain its height and shape. Lovely, great. I love this holly. Tell me about using 
this for screening. So, it’s a really traditional plant. It’s fantastic all year round, evergreen. 
Obviously, a bit of berry in the winter too. This is a very mature and very very slow growing 
plant. So, this is really old at this stage. Now, we would use this somewhere where perhaps the 
boundary line was a bit shorter, because imagine that’s roughly about three foot, and/or it could 
be used in pots. They’re really good in pots, or as a sort of focal tree within the grounds of a 
garden, to try and give that strategic screening. So, just really traditional, but also really wide, 
and really really nice as that sort of one-off or as a group. And great contrast to the long thin 
ones. Absolutely. Yeah. And really dense. So you can use this with deciduous plants as you said to 
give that lovely play with light. And how often would you have to trim the tree, this particular 
holly, to keep this shape every year? Once a year. The thing is when you got something very slow 
growing, it also means your maintenance is a lot easier. The faster growing plants that you can buy 
smaller will give you a longer term headache with the maintenance. So it’s that balancing act all 
the time. Yeah. So guy tell me about this. So this is magnolia grandiflora. Now, magnolia used to be 
brought over to the country basically to be put on a wall, almost espaliered against the wall, but we 
now use them as loose trees, because we found out they’re not as tender as we thought. Big leaf – 
you’ve just got to be careful about the wind – but they are a fantastic evergreen, and they give 
you these lovely dishy white flowers. So, again, this has been grown slightly higher, which is 
about 6 foot three, and then it’s got this really nice tall head above. It’s evergreen, flower, 
but again in a more sheltered space, and could be an excellent screening tree. You’ve just got 
to give it a bit of time to establish itself. So that would end up as a sort of lollipop. Yeah. So 
you could leave it as a sort of loose form tree, or you could have it more as a sort of flame head 
or a lollipop. Absolutely. But it does take time to establish. And the really important thing 
to say about this is if you did want the stem height to change, you could remove these lower 
branches. But if you aren’t going to do that, this will never get taller as a clear stem. 
So what about this one? So this is elaeagnus ebbingei, often seen as a hedging plant, 
mostly coastal. Can be clipped very nicely. When it’s a tree it must be grafted, and it’s 
top grafted here onto elaeagnus angustifolia, which is the Russian olive, and that gives the 
plant its stability, so that when you graft the hedge on top it gives it a nice quick growing top 
to it. So it’s a really good combination. You just have to make sure the water shoots come off. So 
this is part of the elaeagnus angustifolia. Right, and how often do you have to trim that every year? 
Again, most people that we’re selling these to are trying to get something fast growing. So about 
twice a year, but you’re wanting the whole plant to maybe sort of at least add on 50% each year. So 
you really are using this to get quick coverage. Remember, quick means longer term maintenance. So 
that’s the payoff. So tell me about this. This is liquidambar – one of my favourite trees – so using 
it for screening. It’s a fantastic plant as a tree, you know, in a parkland type of environment, 
but actually here on a screen from the base up it can just be fantastic, and also give 
you that really good autumn colour as well. So you’re going to get that with this, but it’s more 
manageable and it’s easier to maintain because you can just clip it to the frame. Right, so you never 
have to worry about it getting out of control. You clip it back to the frame – how often? See, with 
this, I’d be doing it once a year, annually. I mean I would let it get a bit bigger, because I 
think the plant will benefit from that, but this is already a very old tree and you can see it’s 
giving some fantastic height as well. Lovely. So tell me about this. So again this is a larger and 
a named variety of the carpinus fastigiata. It’s carpinus betulus ‘Frans Fontaine’. So it’s really 
well behaved, and again just gives you that lovely vertical drama in the garden. But again, remember 
it is a deciduous tree, so it will drop its leaf, but will be relatively dense and so will give 
you that lovely height – but also screening all the way around, in terms of the foliage, in 
terms of the stems. If it’s garden privacy you’re interested in, I’ve got a video coming up next 
which answers the three most popular questions on creating more garden privacy. So, don’t miss 
that, and thank you for watching. Goodbye!