15 DIY Privacy Screen Ideas to Boost Your Outdoor Space

Last Updated on February 19, 2024 by teamobn

No matter how sociable you are, everyone loves to have some privacy. One of the best ways to block the sightlines of nosy neighbors and passersby is to erect some kind of privacy screen. Making your own privacy screens can be an enjoyable project for the whole family. Here are some privacy screen ideas to bring some needed “privacy” to your indoor space.

15 DIY Privacy Screen Ideas

Privacy is essential to making your outdoor space safe and secure. Below are unique privacy screen ideas that increase the curb appeal of your home and stop your neighbors from peeking around your yard.

Green Screens

Incorporating plants into your design can revolutionize the concept of privacy screens. These natural barriers offer more than just solitude; they add an aesthetic charm to any area. Utilizing greenery for privacy screen ideas is not only visually appealing but also brings a fresh, organic feel to your environment.

With minimal care, including regular watering and occasional pruning, these living screens become a low-maintenance choice. The lush green walls not only look stunning but also emit a pleasant fragrance, enhancing the overall ambiance of your space. This approach to privacy screen ideas blends functionality with natural beauty, making it an excellent choice for those seeking a serene and inviting outdoor area.

Climbing Plants.

Climbing plants are a fantastic option for creative privacy screen ideas. These climbers can be trained to cover walls, fences, or trellises, forming a lush, living barrier. This method of implementing privacy screen ideas not only maximizes vertical space but also introduces a dynamic element to your garden.

Whether you choose flowering vines like clematis or fast-growing ivy, these plants are perfect for adding both privacy and visual interest. The versatility of climbing plants in privacy screen ideas allows for a customizable approach to your outdoor space.

You can create an intimate, secluded area with these natural screens, perfect for relaxing or entertaining. The use of climbing plants in privacy screen ideas is not just practical; it’s a way to add a touch of elegance and charm to any outdoor setting.

Any lattice structure – wire fencing, wooden lattice, trellises, and even woven cord can serve as a fine surface on which to grow climbing plants.

The Dortmund Climbing Rose can make for a truly spectacular climbing plant screen thanks to its lush dark green foliage and beautiful flowers. It’s a fairly vigorous climber and quite hardy in a number of different conditions, but like most of the rose family, beware the thorns.

Bougainvillea is a sun-loving, drought-resistant climbing plant with beautiful red flowers. This hardy plant is one of the fastest climbers around so can create a privacy barrier in a remarkably short time. Be careful to get one of the smaller species of bougainvillea if you’re looking to grow one – some species can grow to a height of 30 feet, making them rather difficult, if not impossible to contain in a small space.

Known for its red and yellow trumpet-shaped flowers, the Trumpet Vine is another fast-climbing plant that thrives with little maintenance and makes an excellent green screen.

If you want your privacy screen to do more than look pretty, consider growing a climbing edible plant, like runner beans, peas, passionfruit, or the like. Not only do all these plants have lovely flowers, they are all relatively easy to grow and can supply a healthy yield of fresh fruit!

Vertical Garden

Vertical gardens present a unique and artistic approach to privacy screen ideas. Unlike traditional horizontal gardening, these gardens grow upwards, utilizing vertical space creatively. This innovative method is ideal for those with limited ground space, offering a solution that’s both functional and visually appealing.
Vertical gardens as privacy screen ideas are more than just visually striking. They also contribute to a healthier environment by purifying the air and reducing noise levels. These green walls can create a serene and tranquil atmosphere, ideal for relaxation.

Curtain Garden

A curtain garden is a unique and practical approach to privacy screen ideas, especially for those who love gardening and cooking. This innovative garden style uses durable materials like landscaping fabric or all-weather canvas. These fabrics are designed with pockets, allowing for the placement of small pots or directly filled with soil.

Imagine the convenience of having fresh herbs right at your fingertips while you cook in your outdoor kitchen or grill at a barbecue. A curtain garden not only serves as a privacy screen but also adds a delightful and aromatic element to your cooking experience. There’s hardly a better way to enhance privacy and functionality in an outdoor cooking area than with a lush, hanging herb garden.
Creating your own curtain garden is easier than you might think.

Hanging Pots

Hanging pots offer an inventive and stylish way to incorporate privacy screen ideas into any outdoor or indoor space. This method involves suspending pots from ceilings, beams, or frames, allowing plants to cascade and create a natural, living curtain. This approach to privacy screen ideas is not only visually appealing but also highly versatile, adapting to various spaces and styles.

Using hanging pots for privacy screen ideas is a creative solution. You can choose a range of plants, from trailing vines to colorful flowers, to create a dense, leafy screen that offers privacy and beauty. The arrangement of these pots can be customized to fit the specific dimensions and aesthetic of your space, making it a flexible option for privacy.

Hanging pots as privacy screen ideas bring more than just seclusion. They add a vertical element of greenery, enhancing the overall ambiance of the area. This setup can transform a bland space into a lush, green oasis.

Incorporating hanging pots into your privacy screen ideas is a unique way to blend functionality with aesthetics. This approach is suitable for both outdoor and indoor settings, offering a customizable and practical solution for creating private, green spaces in your home or garden.

Pot Wall

Pot walls are an innovative and visually striking addition to the realm of privacy screen ideas. They involve arranging multiple pots in a wall-like structure, creating a dense and vibrant barrier.

Incorporating pot walls into your privacy screen ideas allows for a high degree of customization. You can select various plants and pot styles to match your personal taste and the specific requirements of your space.

Pot walls stand out in the world of privacy screen ideas due to their adaptability and stylish appearance. They can be designed to fit any area, whether it’s a small balcony or a spacious backyard. The choice of plants can range from small shrubs to flowering plants, offering a range of textures and colors. This diversity adds a unique character to your space, making it both private and inviting.

Stacked Crates/Planter Boxes

Stacked crates or planters make for an interesting architectural privacy screen. Stacking the crates or planter boxes so only their edges are touching leaves room for smaller plants in the middle of the stack and larger ones on the top.

Hedges

Hedges require a fair amount of maintenance to keep them looking neat, but a solid wall of greenery is excellent for blocking lines of sight and muffling noise.

Large Planters

Large planter pots make an excellent base for a privacy screen. While undoubtedly heavy, they can be moved, making for a moveable screen fit for any outdoor purpose. While any suitable shrub or plant can be grown in one of these planters, there are some in particular that make truly excellent, low-maintenance privacy screens.

Tall Grass

Tall grasses, like Pampas, Feather Reed, Maiden Grass, Zebra Grass, Big Bluestem, and bamboo (the world’s tallest grass) make an excellent screen. Each of these grasses, and many more, can easily grow to a height of at least 5 feet and can thrive in most conditions, and require very little upkeep.

Some grasses can take a fair time to take root and grow, but in the case of bamboo, some varieties grow extremely fast. Bamboo holds the Guinness world record for the fastest-growing plant, with a recorded growth of up to 35” a day! You most probably won’t be able to expect such amazingly fast growth, but a few inches of growth a day is a definite possibility.  

Shrubs And Trees

Numerous shrubs and trees can thrive in large pots or planters, and while they may require a little more TLC than hardy grasses, can make for a beautiful and effective privacy screen. Some excellent options for shrubs and trees to grow for privacy include:

Conifers, like Fir, Pine, Juniper, and Cypress are evergreen and grow well in pots and in direct sunlight. The thick foliage of conifers and narrow, vertical growth make them excellent tree for privacy purposes.

Boxwoods are a family of plants commonly used for hedges and topiary. Boxwoods grow in a variety of shapes and sizes, from smaller 1-3 foot spherical plants to tall, 6+ foot narrow trees, but all share dense foliage and hardiness in common.

Hydrangeas may be deciduous, but they make up for having to sweep up fallen leaves with huge, beautiful, sweet-smelling flowers.

Timber Privacy Screen

Wood has an appeal that is hard to match with any other building material and fits well with nearly any style of architecture. You don’t have to splash out on rare and expensive timbers to make a beautiful wooden screen.

Wooden Pallets

Wooden pallets are an almost perfect building material if you’re looking to make something attractively rustic and hard-wearing. When broken down the individual planks make excellent timber for all manner of DIY projects, but when kept whole, a pallet makes an excellent mount for a pot wall or trellis for climbing plants.

Wattle

Wattle may be a beautiful tree native to Australia, but it’s also a method of construction in which reeds, thin branches, or planks are woven between struts to form a lightweight material commonly used for fences.

Wattle has a lovely, rugged, and rustic appearance and is quite easy to construct – all you need is a large quantity of thin, flexible branches or planks and some patience. Willow makes a great substitute if wattle is not available in your region.

Bamboo

Bamboo is an excellent and hardy material for DIY privacy screens. Bamboo is tough, lightweight, flexible, and easy to grow, so is an excellent, renewable construction material for a variety of different styles of privacy screen, such as wattle, bamboo blinds, latticework, or trellises for climbing plants or vertical gardens.

Old Doors and Shutters

Why throw out old doors and shutters when you can use them to build a quirky but attractive concertina-style privacy screen suitable for both indoor and outdoor use?

Curtains as Privacy Screen

As long as it’s used in a place with enough cover to shelter it from inclement weather, cloth can make for an attractive and economical privacy barrier.

Hanging curtains or rolling cloth blinds are an attractive way to add privacy to a balcony, deck, or porch. Heavier, waterproof materials, like all-weather canvas or oilcloth, are the most hard-wearing options for cloth, but mosquito mesh can also make for an excellent screen.

Steel Privacy Screens

When it comes to hard-wearing and versatile building materials for privacy screens, both indoors and outdoors, it’s impossible to go past laser-cut steel privacy screens – they are made specifically for that purpose after all.

Steel Privacy screens are an affordable and structurally sound material suitable for all privacy screen needs both indoors and outdoors, from fencing to balustrading, window shutters, room dividers, and more.

FAQs: Enhancing Your Space with Privacy Screen Ideas

Conclusion

If you’re interested in buying some laser-cut steel privacy screens, BeMetalBe is an Australian company that ships exclusively to the United States. Each BeMetalBe screen is pre-oxidized to give it a warm, organic look and texture. While some other companies offer bespoke panel designs for a premium price, BeMetalBe sells nine uniquely patterned screens. Working from a template means that the laser cutter doesn’t constantly have to be recalibrated for a new pattern, keeping prices low.

Are you feeling inspired to finally create that privacy screen you’ve been thinking about?