Gardeners - help me increase privacy!

Post date: 2022-01-24 10:34:59

How do we make our shared deck more private?

So far in my moving process, you've all helped me with movers and with showerheads. Now I have a question about privacy.

Our new condo has a deck (yay!) but that deck is essentially one big deck shared with the condo next door and separated at our shared wall-line by, at present, a framed metal divider with, basically, very wide mesh - it's not a chain link fence, but it's basically one aesthetic step up from that. And it's totally see through - the metal forming the "mesh" forms about one inch squares.

The last owner of our condo covered said divider with these super-hinky bamboo panels that look like cheap roller blinds, and we want to replace them with something natural.

The divider is about 6-7 feet high and 11 feet long, and for the purposes of this question please assume that the divider cannot be altered, removed, or replaced with something different. It is, however, unclear whether we can grow vines directly on it - I'm going to bias towards "no", to be safe, but I'm still seeking clarity on that from the HOA. Planter boxes of any shape are fine.

My first thought was bamboo in a narrow planter box that runs along the length of the divider, but there is a bewildering array of types of bamboo, and most of them grow to like 20 feet tall. I was hoping for something that wouldn't grow that tall, something a little lower maintenance than having to prune it on a weekly basis to keep it at the same height as the top of the divider.

So. What sort of thing could I put in a planter box (or boxes), along the 11 feet of divider wall, that would:

- Grow tall enough to provide privacy/not allow us to see through to our neighbor's deck and vice versa
- But grow slowly enough to that height that I don't have to maintain it constantly
- Not be super wide or so lush that it takes up a ton of deck space (think tall and slender rather than medium-sized and round)
- Maybe flower? Maybe not? I'm open to pretty colorful flowering things as opposed to a pretty-but-dullish wall of greenery, but I know very, very little about gardening or plants (thus the question!)

I'm in Portland, OR, for purposes of recommending plants that will work for this need.

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