Jackie French | Escape to your own private world

The obvious solution for garden privacy is a tall fence or hedge. A high blank fence, though, can be more claustrophobic than comforting. A good hedge takes years to grow, from about five years for a photinia or lilly pilly hedge high enough for privacy, and far more for a box hedge, plus if one plant dies in the middle of the hedge, it will look lopsided for years.

Both tall hedges and lofty fences also create shade in smaller gardens. Don't even think of planting spreading cypress trees to block out the outside world - you'll end up with "mostly cypress" instead of a garden.

If you do decide to go the fence route, look for designs that have gaps, like the gorgeous round "moon gates" in stone walls, or picket fences that leave a space between each picket. Casual observers will mostly be moving too fast in a car to be able to focus through the gaps.

Hedges don't have to be impenetrable enough to stop a cattle stampede, either. A hedge of sasanqua camellias can be pruned to be narrow, the way you would if they were espaliered against a wall. You'll get glossy leaves all year round, and months of blooms, but with judicious branch removal they'll let in light but still give privacy.

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Lilly pillies of various kinds can be turned into a thick, fast-growing hedge, but they also make an elegant espaliered one, with light filtering through the branches. You get a discrete retreat, and the birds will get blossom, nesting places and berries, though you might like to share the berries and make lilly pilly cordial. Useful tip: pick lilly pilly berries before they are fully coloured, as really ripe ones have a slight tinge of turpentine.

The fastest hedging plants I know are buddleia, or butterfly bushes. Give them plenty of water and tucker and they'll zoom, shutting out onlookers in about two years or less. Buddleia are generous bloomers, too, in a fabulous range of colours. Trim them to you choice of hedge shape, or don't hedge them at all.

Hedges need trimming to stay neat. The faster the hedge grows, the more trimming it needs, which is why slowly growing box is popular, despite its long establishment time. Once it's hedge size it only needs a haircut two or three times a year. A buddleia hedge will need tending every warm month, and possibly more in a wet year like this.

If you want minimal work for maximum privacy, go for the "casual line of shrubs" look. This involves planting a selection of shrubs that can be pruned to a thin fence shape, so they don't take up too much garden space, but don't look as formal nor need the constant work of a hedge. Instead of a solid wall of greenery you'll have dappled sunlight, and, once again, no one can see in unless they stop and peer through the branches, looking exactly like the lurker they are.

Loosely planted shrubs also provide the maximum of "white noise" - that almost subliminal; song of breeze through leaves that helps block out the human sounds around.

You can choose one kind of shrub to plant along your fence lines, or combine them for an even more casual look. Melaleucas grow tall and fast, and bloom superbly. They are particularly good if you want to block the gaze from any house that overlooks you, as are the taller growing lilly pillies. The newer varieties of magnolia grandiflora have fabulous bright glossy leaves and stunning giant white summer blooms, but are faster growing and far less massive than the old giant varieties. They too can be trimmed into "thin, tall and wide" instead of "round", so they take up relatively little space.

Native finger limes will give you a metre and a half of privacy in about four years, or even two or three metres if extremely well fed and watered, as well as the delicious "vegan caviar'" globules in their pale green, pink or red fruit. Even better, they are prickly, and so possibly an excellent burglar deterrent. They, too, can be pruned to whatever shape you want. They'll eventually grow to about six metres high, but that may take a decade or two.

You don't even have to plant them in a straight line. A judicious placing around the edges of your garden will give just as much privacy as a dense wall of shrubbery.

Basically almost any evergreen tree or shrub that grows fairly fast will work for a casual privacy fence, as long as they begin branching almost at ground level: the taller grevilleas, banksias, rhododendrons, michelia or the hardier kinds of citrus, such as calamondins, often sold as cumquats but hardier and faster growing. Calamondins make a fantastic hedge or privacy screen.

If you need screening NOW, or at least by the end of next weekend, put up a temporary trellis and plant climbing runner beans. They'll provide you with two metres of privacy by Christmas, as well as brilliant red flowers and of course, beans. They'll also give you time to plant your permanent screening plants before the beans die down in the next frost.

Trellised climbers can be an excellent choice for any small area you wanted covered quickly. Think passionfruit, or banana passionfruit, which is not only more frost resistant but gives big flagrant pink blooms and long bright yellow fruit, not quite as delicious as other passionfruit but excellent on a cake or in fruit salad. There's also Chinese star jasmine, clematis and wonga vine - there are a multitude of fast-growing evergreen climbers. Just don't get seduced by jasmine or potato vine, both of which will invade your garden with more determination than Genghis Khan's army. You have been warned.

Basically, the art of privacy means asking yourself "how much do I want?" Do you imagine yourself happiest behind a high stone wall, possibly with medieval narrow slits to fire arrows at invaders?

Would you feel more protected from the hassles of the world behind a solid and neatly trimmed hedge? Or do your garden fantasies better fit casual-looking shrubbery that has nonetheless been placed and trimmed to give you maximum discretion but still plenty of garden space and sunlight?

It's up to you. But this spring gardeners have have more than adequate moisture from the sky - it's possibly the best growing season in 30 years, with some plants growing about 30cm overnight. Make the most of it. If you want perfect privacy, this is the week to plant to get it.

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