Live in QLD so not sure of Council limits on what is possible height wise. Sun drenched (direction NE) area that gets very very hot - original idea was a vertical plant wall but has not been successful. Don't want to spend a fortune but it's not a nice view not to mention their bedroom window looking directly into our yard and our main living area. Small townhouse with neighbours both sides. 5m width.

Would the laser screens from bunnings fit your frames?

Hi, lovely screens above from Wuff.

But to talk about cheaper options change your perspective a little. At the moment your great large plants actually draw the eye to the boundary & hence the neighbours ... By moving these plants and adding other features closer to you the boundary wall will recede. Another point is that the further away a screening item is the larger it needs to be - so a standard garden umbrella placed quite close to house will impede the view into the house from a neighbour.

It is much maligned but in fact you could do worse than nail dark green or black shade cloth to the rear of the existing wooden frame. I would then plant potatoe vine (a form of jasmine that grows astonishingly fast) to grow over the framework. The dark shade cloth will be hidden but block any glimpses of the neighbouring blonde brick wall.

Having established a visual block try to develop the style of your space to distract the eye and focus it on your garden. Bring those beautiful plants forward to the edge of the deck near your home, and put them in bunches rather than a line. Paint the plastic pots or cover them in other ways (use segments of a roll of short bamboo screening from Bunnings wrapped around each pot for example). Paint the wooden chair frames, say bright yellow, and position them to be visible near the pots and add a coffee table - any repurposed item with a flat top, painted to match. Ideally replace or decorate the seat cloths or add bright cushions.

Add a garden umbrella quite close to the house, but slightly to the right, that is set tilted so that the bulk of it screens the view of the neighbour. If the umbrella is with a table all the better, put something attractive on the table - candles at night maybe.

Finally, hang some coloured lights quite low and near the front of your deck so that at night there is a pretty distraction from the neighbours lit windows.

Best wishes, Louise

WUff thatis a great before and after. You must be so happy with that. Did you buy the slats premade or custom? If custom was it diy?

Iwallwork thanks for all the ideas... you can't tell from the photo but the yard slopes down so doesn't make any easier like for umbrella on table but will give all the ideas a go especially since I can try it all with minimal outlay.

Relle belle.. Bamboo is a bit expensive to buy at a good height but I do have some growing in a container so in time it might be an option.

Jlouise31. Thanks for input. I did check it out but they were out of my price range as I would need 5 plus the framing... shame as it would have been best option.

Twin-wall polycarbonate panels. Think shoji screens. Or even conventional roofing profile polycarb mounted behind slats or trellis. You can achieve complete privacy, cut down nasty direct sunlight and still keep a light bright space. The latter option can produce cool light effects when viewed from outside too (see photo). Using a twin-wall system? Add a panel of red, green or blue that will produce a patch of coloured light that moves across the yard with the sun. Not the cheapest option, but not a massively expensive one either if you DIY.

Hilltop House · More Info

Whatever you do, you need to think BIG, LOTS, SAME, and BRAVE. You are trying to screen out or soften a very large element. So you need to have some big proportions here. The two main thrusts are:

1. Decide what you want to be the focal point(s) in your garden. Forget the building (hard, I know!) but decide how you can make places you want to see/ be seen. You have some lovely plants sitting on that deck, and I agree with wallwork's comments - they are drawing the eye. Just experiment by (say) moving them off the deck, and clumping them, so that you have a dense green patch. Take a couple of cushions outside, just to see what a splodge of colours can do on the chairs.

2. Wuff's screens are amazing, but some of the reasons they work is there is a LOT of them (so they create their own rhythm,) they are the SAME (restful for the eye!) and the are BRAVE - he made a decision and stuck to it. Have a chat to Bunnings about high screening options (pine lattic used to be pretty cheap!) , then add climbers or screening plants to soften. The simpler, the braver, and the more uniform the backdrop, the better it works....Good luck!

D. Steel. Thanks for such a different option. Admittedly I had to look it up as I didn't know what it was but age some research, Ihave definitely seen it before. Really great option and surprisingly affordable. Will have to look at that for sure. Thanks for your time and input. It is greatly appreciated.

Nathan Mackay... I'm sad to say I am a brown thumb. The original plan for the wall was a vertical garden (in my head it was an amaxing tropical forrest) but almost all plants died. I say it was the heat of summer... the soil made the water hot like a shower when it ran through the pots each time I watered them.!! Lady at the plant shop said is my fault for not watering enough. Either way, I am learning with the few plants I have left on how to prepare them for seasons etc. I.e I'm currently putting fertiliser and using wettasoil to build up soil moisture before the dry season. I will have to check out vibernum as I haven't heard of that. Thanks for your suggestion.

KT20, thanksfor the suggestions! Iwallwork and yourself have definitely opened my thoughts on distraction/attraction etc and yes I think trying something brave will be the best, like you say, it's going to take something bigger than the problem to solve this! I have the long weekend coming up so will play around with it all and come back with updated photos. If I had to say what I really wanted out of the yard, it would be an extended living space. Somewhere equally comfortable and private as our own living room. On wall to left (out of shot) near back door I'm painting a mural but the eye wont catch that until you walk out. The building can actually be seen from our front door, all the way through downstairs living area as only one light source which is the doorway the photo taken from! There was a massive overgrown Bush there and a few people convinced me to take it down plus aesthetically it wasn't appealing but while we claimed some usable yard on the step slope by building the deck, I also lost out on the amazing privacy and screening it had given without realizing! Couldn't see the house at all before! Thanks again for your time!

So here is the update. This is the view form backdoor now. It's not too dissimilar but I took on the advice re perspective and moved existing items to catch the eye rather than be drawn to the back fence. I wasn't sure it would work or would make the yard look smaller but it is definitely a massive improvement with nil expense! I'm still planning on doing something to cover the house at the back but for now its not as bad as it was and the view form the neighbours house in to ours is also interrupted! I haven't decided on what to do with the back but have some great ideas now thanks to you all.

Thanks for putting up the new photo - I really like the big foliage near the doors, it is so tropical and for me evokes holidays and relaxation, perfect.

Mutcherson, Have another go at your garden wall, the idea is sound and they can be stunning, but this time follow some simple guidelines (the ones that people frequently aren't told when buying wall gardens and you end up finding out the hard way):

1. They do need more watering and often - up to twice a day in summer. Water in the cool of the early morning or evening. A timed irrigation set up will truly help you here and you shouldn't need to worry about hot water too much if you select early morning and evening. If you want to water more regularly, just flush the hot water built up in the hose for 10 seconds until the water is cool (remembering to turn on/off a system when you're rushing to get ready for work or away is a nightmare).

Liquid Wettasoil and products like it will only help you if your soil is hydrophobic - ensuring that your potting mix retains the maximum moisture in the first place is important - add water storage crystals to your mix from the start.

2. In warm/hot weather look at a spray available from Yates called Droughtshield that you spray on to the leaves of your plants and it'll help them to stop losing water through their leaves.

3. Pick drought tolerant plants - succulents work well (and when you're on a tight budget you can strike them from cuttings which is great when you've got a big wall to plant up).

4. Regardless of the plant, using Seasol regularly will help build the cells in your plant walls and help them develop a root system this will help your plants cope with stressful hot weather and fight off pests and disease.

5. Look at your potting medium. Regular potting mix wont work as you've got small pots that are exposed to sun and wind so they'll dry out very quickly. Mix your potting mix 50/50 with coir peat (buy it in a dried out block add water - a 1kg block expands to be 15L of mix - I add seasol when doing this to give my plants a chance to start building a strong root system quickly) and add water storage crystals to the mix (that also swell) - this will give you the best medium to retain water - but because you've added coir peat which is pretty sterile, you'll need to feed your plants with organic fertilizer (liquid fertilizer will give them access to nutrients a lot faster) but I find the benefit of having coir peat retaining water in my pot plants vastly outweighs a little extra fertilizer.

georgi02 "follow some simple guidelines, the ones that people frequently aren't told when buying wall gardens and you end up finding out the hard way"

Plant walls are fashionable and seem ideal for small spaces but it would be good if the stores that sell the bits and pieces told people it's not just a trendy decor item, it needs some gardening expertise.

mutcherson, is there any space between that deck and the fence? IMO the most successful low-maintenance gardening is the right choice of plant growing in the ground. As soon as you start messing around with unusual plants, unusual containers, unusual locations, you start having additional challenges.

But I reckon if you want it's worth having another try with a wall using georgi02 's instructions. Succulents are easy to grow from cuttings and forgiving of lack of water. When you take cuttings of succulents you are supposed to put them aside for a while before potting them and I have found pieces I forgot I cut weeks earlier and managed to grow them. I have had some problems with succulents but that was because of frost so you you won't have that challenge.

Hi Mutcherson, why don't you take a look at an Artificial Vertical Garden. It's adds privacy and greenery all in one go.

Lavander Luxury · More Info

The Greenery here adds much needed vibrancy and means there's no maintenance. Would look great on your back fence!!

Feel free to take a look at our website designerverticalgardens.com.au

Hi all. Thank you for all your input. I put all the ideas together and this is how it has settled. These chairs move to the deck in the winter for the sun but come up under the upstairs deck for summer. Hopefully it distracts the eye using perception, which was one of the biggest things I learned from you all. It's not set up for pictures and entertaining right now as I put cushions and rugs out etc but if I don't post now, I never will!! Thank you again for your time and input.

Check out some artificial green walls - they will last a long time and super easy to install? https://designerplants.com.au/product-category/vertical-garden-green-walls/