The best fencing for privacy
5 min read · Reviewed 2026-08-21
Privacy is a sightline problem, not just a height problem.
Work out what you are screening
Privacy from a neighbour's ground-floor window needs a different answer from privacy from an upstairs window or a raised garden behind you. A 2 metre fence solves the first easily and the second barely at all.
Stand where you actually sit in the garden and look at what you can see. That sightline, not the fence height, is the thing to design around.
The options ranked
From most to least private:
- Close board with a capping rail — completely solid, no gaps, follows the ground
- Closeboard-effect panels — solid face, factory made
- Hit-and-miss boarding — private from straight on, lets wind through
- Overlap panels — solid when new, gaps appear as timber shrinks
- Slatted panels — contemporary, partial screening only
Going higher than the fence
Where height limits stop you, planting behind the fence is the practical route: pleached trees, bamboo in containment, or a tall evergreen hedge. It also softens the boundary, which a 2 metre wall of timber does not.