Love the charcoal colour idea and I would match the wall hangings with your idea of narrow bench seats with perhaps a creeper grown in pots in between the benches?

I would paint it charcoal, put a large pot at each end with maybe a Little Gem Magnolia and fill in the centre with metal rusted screens and back light them. I love the sound of horizontal wooden slates but its a big wall to fill and would be quite expensive. Painting it white has made it way to visible and is drawing the eye to it instead of the pool.

I offer three very different approaches to see if one will bite.

1. In order to not take up deck space, add planter boxes to the top rear of the fence(s), which will probable require their own support. Plant evergreen ground covers off all sorts that will grow down and decorate the face of the fence, as that is where the light is.

2. Attach bamboo stems or a prepared bamboo fence to provide interesting texture and color, while still maintaining the simple modern look.

3. Cover the board fence(s) with Gaudi designs, and you will never run out of interest and beauty.

Sorry, you can only pick one. Enjoy!

You could attach bamboo fencing. It comes in panels that can be attached to wall or fence. Below is a photo of a colorbond fence cladded with quality bamboo. Comes in a dark colour like below or natural.

bamboo fencing privacy screens · More Info

At Designer Plants we often help customers with privacy needs.

We have products such as our Photinia and Laurel Trellis' that I think might interest you.

They are Artificial so they require absolutely no maintenance and they are build to last in the sun - In fact, they come with a 5-year guarantee against cracking and fading.

Each screen is 1 meter by 2 meters however they contract and retract from 1 meter all the way out to approximately 2.5 meters.

If you're Interested check out our website - www.designerplants.com.au

Alternatively you can contact me directly with any questions - aaron.quarrell@designerplants.com.au - and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

Good Luck with the project!

They say black recedes so I think you're on the right track painting it dark again, maybe not black but something less stark like charcoal. If you don't want to maintain a garden then don't have plants. Plants in pots are less forgiving of lack of watering, plants beside pools need to cope with splashes of chlorine, plants in narrow areas need pruning, plants surrounded by reflective surfaces need to cope with heat, it's a challenging gardening environment, so don't buy something which looks pretty in the garden centre but will need maintenance, look for alternative decorative items to draw the eye away from the receding fence.

Thanks for the advice! We did end up painting black actuall as the fences either side were black also. These were taken just after so over 12months ago and the plants matured beautifully after. We planted some creeping figs, boxwood, lavender, magnolia, disbudding and much more!

the house just sold and I was so pleased with how it turned out! Thanks again!