How to Plant a Natural Privacy Screen

Fast-growing twining vines trained to climb string make a great natural privacy screen for decks, porches or other areas that could use a living wall that still lets some light shine through. With just a few inexpensive materials, you'll soon have a beautiful, lush green screen to give your outdoor area more privacy. Flowering vines have the added benefit of color and scent, making your outdoor space even more inviting.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Package of metal hook eyes
• Garden twine
• Scissors
• Fast-growing twining vine seeds
• Potting soil
• Oblong or rectangular planter
• Liquid fertilizer

1. Choose a packet of the type of twining vine seeds that have tendrils to wrap around a support. Some good choices include grapevine, sweet pea, clematis, moonflower or honeysuckle.
2. Screw metal hook eyes into either the floor of your deck or the side of your porch where you want the screen to be. Space them about 4 inches apart. The amount of hook eyes you use depends on how wide you want your screen to be, but remember that the total width shouldn't exceed that of your planter(s).
3. Repeat step 2 at the roof, making sure the hook eyes at the top are aligned with those at the bottom.
4. Knot one end of a long piece of twine through the first hook eye and thread the remainder up and down through the hooks. Pull the strings tightly as you thread them to keep them straight. Tie the other end of the string to the last hook eye and trim off the excess.
5. Fill your planter with potting soil and plant climbing vine seeds 1 inch deep, spacing them 1 inch apart.
6. Add liquid fertilizer to the soil according to package directions.
7. Water well and keep the soil moist as the seedlings grow.
8. Place the planter right next to the row of strings. The seedlings will begin attaching themselves to the strings and grow upward.

Tips & Warnings

• If you don't want to screw the hooks directly into the surface, you can screw them into a strip of wood and nail that to the surface instead.
• You may need more than one planter, depending on how wide you want your privacy screen to be.

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