Landscape & Urban Design Issue 42 2020 | Page 8

LANDSCAPING SERVICES DESIGNS ON PRIVACY For garden designers the desire to create stylish but also private spaces is often top of their clients’ requirements. This together with the growing awareness of the environmental and health benefits of living with more trees and plants has encouraged us all to want more green in our lives. Many outdoor spaces are overlooked by neighbours or may have immense walls which block out light and require softening with natural foliage. If full privacy is difficult to achieve, it’s usually possible to create at least one screened area. Instant Hedges, a family run nursery in rural Buckinghamshire, grows a vast range of quality semi-mature and mature trees and hedging. They offer a complete service from design and consultancy, through to supply and planting. Working closely with designers and private clients they are experts in providing the best advice and most suitable planting options. It is important to consider all options. Rather than simply planting a tall hedge, using pleached trees can create more of an airy space while still providing screening. 8 www.landud.co.uk Further planting at the base of the trees could include smaller evergreens, flowering shrubs, ferns and grasses. Box Head trees make a strong design statement. Often used at the front of properties they can transform the entire entrance. As with pleached trees, the trunks are visible and there’s scope for underplanting. And then there are the wonderful Table Top trees, ‘roof trained’ parasol shapes, among them Malus Evereste (crab apple) or Platanus (plane). These beautiful style features provide instant privacy, shelter from overlooking windows and create an area of dappled shade for rest and entertaining. Please call Instant Hedges on 01296 399585, email [email protected] or visit www.instanthedges. co.uk for helpful advice or further information on any of the above. Follow us @ludmagazine