Privacy and screening plants for terraces
Grow more on your terrace.
Solid screens catch wind and create dangerous load on terrace balustrades. Planting is a better solution: it filters wind rather than blocking it, and the load is distributed across containers rather than concentrated on a single fixing point.
Bamboo in large containers is the most popular terrace privacy plant for good reason: it grows fast, stays evergreen, filters wind, and can reach 3 to 4 metres in a 60-litre container. Use clumping varieties rather than running bamboo, which escapes containers and causes structural problems.
Other reliable screening options include tall ornamental grasses such as Miscanthus, climbing plants on a trellis (climbing roses, jasmine, or wisteria for established terraces), and dense evergreen shrubs like Portuguese laurel and photinia in large containers. For seasonal screening, climbing beans and sweet peas on wire or netting give fast summer coverage and produce food or flowers at the same time.
Always consider wind load when choosing screening: a dense evergreen hedge in a long planter acts like a sail in strong gusts. Stagger heights and use mixed planting rather than a solid mass where wind exposure is high.