A two-metre fence gives you two metres of privacy and a wall to stare at. A layered planting scheme gives you four to five metres of soft green screening, birdsong, and a garden that gets better every year. This design is the one we recommend most often to homeowners who can see straight into the neighbour's kitchen — and vice versa.
The idea
Privacy fails when people plant a single row of one species and hope. It succeeds with three layers: a tall evergreen backbone on the boundary, a mid-height textural layer in front of it, and a soft understorey that ties the whole thing to the lawn or path. The layers stagger sight-lines, so even before the backbone reaches full height, there's no clean line of sight into your space.
The palette, layer by layer
The backbone: Lilly Pilly Backyard Bliss. Dense to the ground, glossy, psyllid-resistant and quick — comfortably 3–4 m and happy to be clipped at whatever height ends the staring contest. Plant at 60–75 cm centres for a solid screen; our hedge calculator converts your boundary length to an exact count.
The feature tier: Teddy Bear Magnolia. Three of these, staggered forward of the hedge line, break up the "green wall" look with large glossy leaves, bronze felted undersides and dinner-plate white blooms. They read as deliberate design, not just screening.
The texture change: Pittosporum Silver Sheen. Shimmering small silver leaves on near-black stems — planted as a loose cloud in front of the darker lilly pilly, it adds depth the way a good interior adds lamps, not just a ceiling light.
The perfume: Gardenia Florida. A ribbon of eight along the path side turns a screen into a place you walk slowly past in November.
The floor: Tanika Lomandra and Star Jasmine. Fine-leafed lomandra softens the hedge's feet; star jasmine fills the gaps and will happily climb any fence panel still showing.
How to plant it
Set the backbone row first, 50 cm inside the boundary so it thickens on your side. Stagger the magnolias 1.5–2 m forward. Keep the pittosporum in odd-numbered groups rather than a row — clouds, not soldiers. Water deeply twice a week for the first summer; after that this palette is remarkably self-sufficient. Full planting is exactly what our install crews do daily — add professional planting in the cart and it arrives and goes in the ground the same week.
Good to know
Faster coverage: start the backbone at 300 mm or 45 L instead of tubes — the pack below lets you switch sizes. Browse more options in screening plants and hedging plants, or see the narrow side garden for boundary strips under a metre wide.