need a cover-up

We used to have an aviary at the end of the back garden and recently had it pulled down. Now all I can see fr the kitchen window is the horrible ugly mess that used to be behind the aviary ! We used it to dump all weeds, rubbish, and its now about 2ft high right along the back fence to the field. Added to that, next door's compost heap has fallen onto it, and while I can (gladly) steal his compost and use it, it also has half a chicken wire fence and some old wood posts in there...
I cant dig, my husband cant dig. Both too old and decrepit. Is there a nice green fast-growing plant , not expensive, that I could use to make a screen ? The space that would need filled is a strip about 15ft long. Thanks !

 

Sprinkle a pack of poached egg plant and nemophila Ming, two of my favourite annuals-blue and yellow-classic colour combination-and they will self seed.

 

I need them to be around 3ft high, will that do it ? I was thinking of those fir-like dark green bushes..??

 

" I was thinking of those fir-like dark green bushes"

Voldermort you mean? :D

There was a discussion the other day in another thread which may be relevant:

http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/showthread.php/new-hedge-help-20096.html?p=317607#post317607

 

ooh ok ta thats a pity about the leylandii.... I live high and windy on open moors and we have bad winters with lots of snow. What will do in Cornwall wont do here.. I wish ! For some reason ivy wont grow in my garden, I spent a bl**dy fortune on variegated ivies and they all die off fast. Climbers on trellis will end up in Norway in the first gale. Sigh. I'm getting depressed LOL !

 

Bamboo? For a quick fix before something more permanent grows, my annual lavateras grew last year more than 1m tall and flowered all summer. A seed in a pot, a month on the windowsill, that's all. Some staking is a good idea even though the stems grew to a thickness of a finger.

Or what about just directing the eye? A cute bench with some handsome plants (in containers?) to one side?

 

That's actually an idea - I have a lovely blue bench seat round the front and can move it.... Hmmm. Thinking. LOL !

 

Buddleja. It is fast growing, cheap, and can take some serious punishment. Some people don't like it, considering it to be a weed, but it does produces masses of nice purple flowers throughout summer. If it breaks in a gale, it won't care, it will just grow back thicker when the weather warms up.

 

I have a buddleia Black Knight out the front and its hanging onto life by its wee toenails. I just packed it with new compost and prayed over it LOL ! I think my situation is hard for growing stuff at all.. most of the things people are kindly suggesting I have already tried and failed with.. I may sink into depression... !!

 

Celeri, we went out today and looked at it and a bench wouldnt do. You would see the horrible pile behind and through and under it... Maybe a 5ft high wooden hoarding with a south sea islands scene on it ...?

 

"Or what about just directing the eye?"

A Trompe l'oeil perhaps? Here's one - note that there is NO actual shed, its just some fence panels made to look like a shed (I don't suppose you want a shed looking like that either!, but perhaps you could fake something else?)

http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/virgothomas/virtualgarden/folly.html

These street-artist Trompe l'oeil are pretty cool too:

http://superdolly.blogspot.com/2007/03/trompe-loeil-triumph.html

 

oooooh - eldest son is an artist...hmmm ! thinking !

 

Then again you might do it the Estonian way. In the heart of the lovely old town of the capital Tallinn there is a plot that looks like a dumping area. In 80s it was just that, after the reindepedendance the city just put there a sign "this is a rememberance site for the distruction our city suffered during the war. ". Neat and ingenious, a fivepoundfix. And you might get American tourists as well.

Then againagain, perhaps a fast growing bamboo would be the easiest thing to try.

 

Oooooooh... you mean plonk a post there saying
" Rob Roy's Grave "....
and put an ad in The New York Times. Hmmm ...

 

hi Ming,

I'd suggest a rose hedge or a rambling rose would hide your "squalid corner" (we all have one). When you buy them they look like sad dead sticks but in no time at all they are spreading all over the place and soon you have lots of leaf cover, and lots of blooms later. I live in a windy place and my rose hedge seems indescructable. You need to keep pruning it back to make it branch out more, and prune it quite hard in the spring.

Good luck