6 backyard privacy tricks to keep nosy neighbors away

We love our home in Colorado, with one massive caveat. The occupants of three neighboring houses can peer directly into our backyard, a lawn that is often dotted with toys, garden tools and other evidence of our family’s decidedly free-range life. Time has proved that we cannot change our ways, so we need privacy, stat.

“When it comes to privacy, I always think of the visual, which is the most obvious,” says landscape architect Robert Bell of Bell Design, which has offices in Washington, D.C.; Southampton, New York; and Palm Beach, Florida. “For me, that’s plantings: So hedges, vines, trees, green things like that.” But Bell also thinks about “audible privacy” (read: muffling noisy neighbors) and “psychological privacy” (the feeling of being comfortably enclosed, like behind a locking gate). I recently spoke to Bell and other landscaping wizards for advice on how to create seclusion — or at least the illusion of it — quickly.

Try fast-growing greenery

If you’re seeking to veil your outdoor space, look for plants that tend to shoot up in a zip. Quick-growing vines, such as akebia, make a great starting point, Bell says. If vines aren’t your style, tall hedges or narrow columnar trees (such as hornbeams or Green Giant arborvitae) are reliable, dense and can be planted close together for day-one impact. They can also help with noise control — both by muffling sound and masking sight lines. “As soon as you can’t see people, you really can’t hear them,” Bell says. “It’s psychological.”

Michael Cafiero, a landscape designer in Brooklyn, says arborvitae is his go-to privacy hedge. “They’re quick-growing native trees, very dense evergreens, and they kind of create this wall,” he says.

But he warns against erecting a green monolith. To prevent that, he’ll layer in smaller plantings in front to soften the effect.

Landscape designer Stephen Block of Inner Gardens in Los Angeles also embraces this approach. “You have the static hedge that goes all the way across the back and then you bring in shrubby plants in front of it … so that it’s not static,” he says. “It’s got life and movement and some color.” Options include white roses, bay laurel or Salvia Waverly, things that will add subtle color and turn the leafy barrier into a lush element of a fully developed garden.

Splurge on plants that are already large

I have little patience for waiting for the “third-year leap” — especially when I can skip “first-year sleep, second-year creep” altogether. If you’re in the market for immediate privacy, invest in plants that are already sizable. “Here in California, people will put in a ficus hedge, like Ficus nitida, which is a fast-growing green, soft, easy, nice hedge that you can buy 15 feet tall day one if you want,” Block says. Space them correctly and you’ll achieve a bit of a bulwark. “Literally plant them as we call ‘pot to pot,’ so that you don’t see anything between them.”

“Holly, arborvitae, juniper, ficus and podocarpus are all great tall hedge options — depending on regional suitability,” Adam Kober, a landscape architect with Kober Design Group, said in an email. While towering hedges can be significantly more expensive on the front end, they can save you years of waiting for that wall of green to develop. “An added benefit of a hedge is that they require minimal space within the garden. One can easily achieve 18 to 25 feet of screening while only using 3 to 4 feet of width on the ground.”

Put up a wall (of sorts)

Yes, of course, you can always put up a fence. But given that many areas cap fence heights at six feet for side and rear yards, this might not give you the privacy you’re craving. One way around this, Cafiero says, is to use a semi-open structure and cover it with vines. “Sometimes you can’t get above eye level with fencing, but you can kind of do open screening: metal or wood slats that are spaced semi-far apart that you can grow vines to trellis on,” he says. Avoid invasive English ivy here, he says, unless you’re working with a concrete-fringed area where there’s no way for it to escape. Instead, he suggests opting for climbers suited to your region — like jessamine or coral honeysuckle, which have the bonus of attracting hummingbirds. Virginia creeper is another fast-growing choice, though it loses its leaves in winter.

Create a ceiling

In cities, where nosy neighbors may loom above, Cafiero favors using pergolas or umbrellas to create quick privacy. “We’re doing a project in Manhattan (with) big umbrellas over areas,” he says, adding that the sturdy marine-grade powder-coated aluminum options from Tuuci are his go-to.

Gurgling fountains: Friend or fail?

If sound is your biggest privacy woe, adding a fountain could help. But the results may vary. “The fountain idea really doesn’t work very well unless you get a large fountain with a big, big, big pipe,” Block says, noting that the way the water falls from the fountain also matters. “The fountains that I like gurgle or fall — the water falls — it’s not forced.” Height also matters here. “The higher the water is falling from, the louder it’s going to be,” Bell says. Be warned, though: Larger fountains offer bigger payoff, but they often require significant setup, including a plumber and a pump. “If you can do a big fountain, it’s splashy and noisy and wonderful,” Bell adds.

Create a distraction

If all else fails, a little trickery can work wonders for your alfresco mental health. A sculpture or pretty pergola can draw the eye away from an unsightly air-conditioning condenser, Bell says, while wind chimes may cover traffic noise and the chatter of neighbors. “Landscape architects are not making unpleasant elements actually disappear, and if you look or listen hard enough you can certainly see or hear the ugly things,” he said in a follow-up email. “It’s a sleight of hand to direct your attention from the nasty to the nice.”

Kathryn O’Shea-Evans is a design and travel writer in Colorado.