Help with a garden wall

8 years ago

We are having our garden landscaped etc presently but the neighbour has a difficult to love wall made of engineering bricks with railings above (see photo).

We cannot knock it down but we can attempt to hide it. Sadly there will be no room to plant a hedge to hide it that way.

I am keen to get troughs of planters hanging off the railings to hide them but does anyone have any thoughts on how one might soften the orange ugliness of the engineering bricks? I though paint or some kind of wash?

The rest of our garden boundaries will be red stock brick to match the Victorian house, the ground will be light sandstone with sedum/alpine planting between

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (4)

minnie101
8 years ago

Are you going to have troughs all long? I'm just thinking if you paint the top of the wall your side and the other remains as it is and you can see it, it may look a bit odd. This may not be your thing but I've got some modern pillars in my basement that were the same brick as yours and looked out of place. Using very watered down paint and layering grey and white paint and a mixture of a brush and sponge I achieved this look. To be honest I didn't spend a lot of time doing it and will redo the mortar at some point as I'm not 100% happy with it. I do think the mortar is the bit you need to be careful about otherwise it could look false, would trailing evergreens be better??
Rob thanked minnie101
Rob
Original Author
8 years ago
Thanks Minnie101. I am going to try and find as many troughs as i can and plant things which will spill over and hide a lot of it. I did wonder about using watered down paint, i think i would only do the vertical section and leave the top as it would look odd to have a half-and-half effect.
Related Discussions
need help with garden wall
Q
Comments (1)
Corrugated metal
...See More
need help for garden arrangement to cover klargester in front garden
Q
Comments (5)
I am currently involved in a project where we have buried the offending structure partially in a raised timber bed and planted a range of groundcover shrubs around the access - including: Pachysandra terminalis, Cotoneaster dammeri, Cornus canadensis to name a few. Good Luck!
...See More
Help to brighten up my garden
Q
Comments (14)
Lovely potential to develop this space! Looking back towards your house from the garden area, what about window boxes under each of your ground floor windows with simple fixed shutters (louvre doors) either side of the long window? Keep your house walls light colour as at present with white painted window frames and either white or gentle soft green door, shutters, gate & window boxes. I would want to plant troughs along the left hand wall with some climbing plants as well as colour as in Kevin's sketch & I would also consider an outdoor mirror in the centre opposite the RH ? Kitchen window to reflect colours of the window box planting back to the house but I wouldn't want to restrict access back to the house by too much overplanting. Certainly power washing the yard & covering with pea gravel could be good or paving as in main garden. Instead of knocking down the wall & if expenses allow, what about a wrought iron gate giving an impression of peeping into a Moroccan courtyard?! Enjoy your exciting project & have fun!
...See More
Landscaping help – what to do with garden walls on boundary?
Q
Comments (4)
I can't really tell from the pics how your neighbour's fence posts go in to the ground. That's the only sticky wicket. It looks like the retaining wall is purely inside the boundary and therefore, shouldn't affect the fence. You would ideally take away some of the bricks from near the bottom of the fence post to see how it's secured in to the ground. ( ie, I can't tell if the fence post is sitting on the wall, attached to it etc, it looks like it's behind it, but check ). Here's a good site on installing sleeper walls. wooden supplies.co.uk
...See More
minnie101
8 years ago
If you have a few bricks lying around I would test it first, mine had a bit more texture than yours so it was easy to get a dappled brick effect with the different colours. The other thing is, it may age when you have plants over it. Or you could try the live yoghurt trick or tea or coffee staining may work! I think you should probably have a practice run anyway! I don't think the wall is that bad anyway and once you add the plants you'll hardly see any of it. Can you also add potted plants? You could also try adding metal wires all the way across the wall and training plants all the way across. We did that with our old back fence as it didn't belong to us and wasn't particularly attractive.
Rob thanked minnie101
pannacotta
8 years ago
I would try yoghourt and see if that helps.
Rob thanked pannacotta

Help with a garden wall

Comments (4)

minnie101

Rob
Original Author

Related Discussions

minnie101

pannacotta

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

Help with a garden wall

Comments (4)

minnie101

RobOriginal Author

Related Discussions

minnie101

pannacotta

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

Rob
Original Author