How to Use Plants to Screen Unwanted Views

One of the most common problems our clients ask us to solve with their landscape design is the need for screening. Sometimes the views to or from the neighbor’s are just too open. Having your neighbors stare down at your barbecue from their deck can certainly put a damper on things, or maybe you’re just tired of staring at the back of their shop from your patio. On a smaller scale, a well-designed landscape can hide eyesores like utility meters, plumbing cleanouts, power poles, and other necessities that nonetheless detract from the landscape. If you’ve become resigned to unsightly features of your landscape, read on for some tips on effective screening.

Consider the Season

When selecting what plants to use for screening, there is naturally a major division to consider: evergreen trees and shrubs vs. deciduous trees and shrubs. The choice between the two depends largely on the seasons during which you are looking for screening. Evergreens tend to be slower growing, but of course have the benefit of retaining their foliage through the winter. The pyramidal form of conifer trees provides less screening at the top than a broadleaf tree of comparable size, which means that they can take a long time to block views or hide large buildings.

Although they are bare in the winter, the deciduous shrubs obscure the neighboring house during the summer when the patio is in use.

The best solution will take the strengths and weaknesses of the plants into account. If you are trying to screen views to and from your patio, which you’ll likely be using only in the growing season, deciduous trees will provide more effective cover. If you are trying to block the view into your bedroom window, however, you’ll want the year-round screening that evergreens offer. In the middle are marcescent trees, which are deciduous but hold their dead leaves through the winter, like beeches and oaks. They might not be the most attractive option, but can provide winter screening across a larger area than a narrow conifer.

Because of the year-round need for screening, evergreen hemlocks are used to hide the utilities and back of the garage from the driveway, although they will take longer to mature to completely hide the area.

Similarly, the plants you use to screen smaller landscape features will depend on where the features are visible from. If you have a white plastic cleanout outside your kitchen window, an evergreen shrub will be the better option for hiding it. A gas meter next to your patio, however, only needs to be hidden when you’re using the patio, so a deciduous plant would work.

Consider the Perspective

While selecting the right types of plants is important, putting them in the right place has an equal impact on the effectiveness of their screening. When there is something we don’t want see, the impulse is often to just put something in front of it to hide it. While that strategy can work for small objects, it tends to backfire when applied to larger views.

 A well-located yarrow plant hides the small plastic plumbing cleanout from the patio area.

If your neighbors have a deck overlooking your yard, a single ten-foot spruce tree along the fenceline isn’t going to do a lot to block it. You’ll need more trees, and they’ll either need to be bigger or you’ll have to wait years for them to grow large enough to provide screening. Focusing on the viewer, however, will provide a better outcome with less expense. Moving that ten-foot spruce tree along the sightline from the neighbors’ deck towards the patio greatly increases the value each tree has. A person on a ten-foot-tall deck won’t have their view affected by the tree if it’s located next to them, but the tree will obscure more and more of the patio the closer it is. Similarly, a person standing on the patio will not be able to see the deck in the next yard if they have a ten-foot tree next to them blocking the view.

This same principle can be used to screen large areas from view. A shop, for example, would require extensive plantings around it to soften its tall walls. Targeting the places from which it is visible, however, can provide a similar effect with more limited effort. Strategically locating planting beds to interrupt the view of the shop from key areas like patios, walkways, and windows, will do as much to screen the shop as completely surrounding the building with trees would.

A little thought and planning can make a big difference in your efforts to screen unwanted views. If you have an eyesore in your landscape that you’re ready to hide, contact us for help finding a solution.

How to Use Plants to Attract Birds

Watching lively birds flit around the yard can add an extra layer of enjoyment to your outdoor space. Bird feeders will certainly bring avian visitors, but a little planning and some well-selected plants can create a full service bird habitat. Birds have certain needs for survival, and by making sure your landscape meets those needs, you can turn your yard into a bird-watching hotspot. Here are the basic steps to take to invite birds in.

The dark-eyed junco is a year-round visitor to Spokane and Coeur D'Alene and is common even in urban gardens.

Provide Shelter

No matter the time of year, birds need shelter. They need somewhere to hide from predators, somewhere to build their nests, or simply somewhere to get out of the weather. To attract a variety of birds to your yard, provide them with a variety of plants to shelter in. Each species has its own preference about what height or density of vegetation it prefers, and this can change throughout the seasons. Plant trees with a mix of large, medium, and small shrubs to give a range of options.

When choosing plants, consider winter as well. Evergreens with dense foliage can give excellent protection from predators, but also provide extra insulation in frigid temperatures. Dead trees are also important sources of shelter for birds. If you have enough space on your property that a dead tree won’t threaten structures or people, leave it standing to create an outstanding habitat for birds and other wildlife.

Provide Food

Though you can provide food for birds year-round, selecting plants that will provide seeds and berries throughout the winter will give birds an important resource in the lean winter months. By planting a variety of food sources, you can add some diversity beyond standard bird seeds and attract different birds in the process.

While plants with showy winter berries might seem like the most obvious food choice for birds, they are also drawn to seeds from many plants you may not think of. Cones from pines, firs, spruces, and other evergreens hold nutritious seeds, as do spent perennial wildflowers like lupine, echinacea, and milkweed. Ornamental grasses can even provide nutritious seeds for birds. To actually be useful to birds, however, it’s important to leave your garden cleanup for the springtime. By deadheading, trimming, and pruning in the fall, you remove valuable nourishment that could otherwise sustain birds through the winter.

The small cones of western red cedar hold seeds for a wintertime snack.

In warmer months, insects are a large part of the diet for many birds, so consider making your landscape favorable to them as well. Use native plants, which have been shown to attract more insects, both overall numbers and numbers of species, than exotic plants. Limit or eliminate pesticide use in your garden, as many products are toxic to organisms beyond what they are designed to control.

Hummingbirds also require a healthy supply of insects to feed on, but otherwise have different needs than songbirds, as they feed on flower nectar rather than seeds. Tubular flowers like penstemon, salvia, and agastache are fantastic food sources. And while hummingbirds certainly enjoy sugar water feeders, the red dye in store-bought mixtures is actually harmful to them. A homemade solution is easy to make by boiling one part sugar and four parts water.

Other Considerations

There are, of course, other things you can do to make your landscape attractive to birds. Building bird houses appropriate for the breeding birds in your area could yield a nest, which will give you weeks of enjoyment. A bird bath provides a place for grooming, which is critical to a bird’s health, as well as providing drinking water. In the winter when open water is scarce, a bird bath with a heating element will become a magnet for songbirds.

A basic overall principle to remember is that making your landscape better resemble nature will attract nature into it. To enjoy birds in your own backyard, you may have to make concessions for their happiness. You might see a tangle of shrubbery, but they see a cozy place to hide from a predator. A mess of spent flowerheads is a wintertime meal for a bird, and an aphid infestation is a summertime buffet. With a little planning and compromise, however, you can attract a variety of fascinating avian neighbors to your yard.