Sharing all of our tips and tricks for how we created a beautiful DIY privacy patio garden with plants in our backyard on a budget for less than $150 with pictures.
Rather than spending money on a wood privacy fence, we decided to create a privacy patio garden with a living screen of beautiful evergreen and perennial plants.
We were able to create this perennial white and evergreen privacy patio garden for less than $150 by doing the gardening ourselves by mostly transplanting & dividing plants we already had.
How to Make a Privacy Patio Garden with Plants
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Before Picture of our Privacy Patio Garden
Here is the before picture of what the backyard garden looked like after taking our deck down & after our DIY wood retaining wall was done.
Pretty bare!
Because our new brick patio doesn’t go back quite as far as the former deck did we had a blank slate in some spots & a few overgrown shrubs in others.
Unfortunately we had to take down our garden shed soon after we started due to too much termite damage.
The first thing we had to figure out was what plants/ shrubs to transplant & what to keep.
Privacy Patio Garden TIP – Keep What you Have
If you are fortunate to have any evergreens or large shrubs already in your outdoor space, try and keep what you have if you are able.
It will save you a ton of time and money and you will start off with some privacy to begin with!!!
Evergreen Boxwoods as the Backdrop for this Sunken Privacy Patio Garden
We were VERY lucky to have two giant evergreen boxwoods to start.
The boxwoods were definitely staying but there were a few azaleas that we wanted to move & weeds we needed to pull.
Thankfully, all but 1 survived transplanting and will hopefully fill in beautifully under our giant pine trees in another spot in our backyard.
Plant Trees for Future Shade on the Garden Patio
There is no point going to all the trouble of creating a privacy patio garden just to bake in the hot sun in the middle of summer.
Because we needed more shade for our new DIY reclaimed brick patio we planted a few more trees so we had a tree on all 3 sides of the patio.
We kept our Yoshino Cherry that we had planted soon after we moved in to shade our previous deck & also our patio fire pit.
We transplanted a Kousa dogwood to a spot next to our hot tub.
The tree was about 7 foot tall & has already started to shade our fire pit & hot tub at different times during the day.
I also moved the stepping stones that were hidden under the pachysandra around our octagon garden shed.
The last tree we planted in the center of the patio is a Franklinia tree, FRANKLINIA ALATAMAHA – PLANT — APPROX 14-20 INCH – DORMANT .
Because we live just outside of Philadelphia I thought it would be fun to have a tree in our yard named after Ben Franklin who was so important to the city of Philadelphia as well as our country.
These beautiful trees are pretty rare and tough to grow so I am crossing my fingers that it will be happy here. 🙂
It will take a long time for this tree to grow before it starts giving us any real shade but I am willing to wait & give it a try.
Rhododendrons for Color & Greenery
We also bought 4 white rhododendrons like this one from Amazon, Cat Album White Rhododendron – Live Plant – Quart Pot to give this patio garden more privacy & spring blooms.
Transplanting & Dividing Plants to Keep this Patio Garden on Budget
I also transplanted & divided a lot of hostas, hydrangeas & ferns to fill in the blank spaces in this privacy patio garden.
Beginner Gardening Tip – I ALWAYS have Hostas that need dividing so if you are just starting out with a new garden.
Check with some gardening friends & chances are they have extra plants they can divide!
This gardening project took way longer than I ever imagined thanks to many underground roots from a former pear tree we took down last year.
Below is a pic of what this space looked liked before we started to create a privacy patio garden with a stone walkway along the back of our farmhouse.
Even after cutting down this pear tree down it continued to send up water sprouts all over the garden next to our flagstone walkway and our diy post and rail fence.
After the roots were out we could transplant more hostas along the stone walkway.
It will take a few years for this patio garden to fill in and give us the privacy and shade we want but I can’t wait to watch it grow.
The privacy patio garden has come a long way since we started this patio project.
Privacy Patio Garden Budget
We saved the most money we could for this privacy patio garden by using a few evergreens we already had and transplanting small perennials like hosta.
In total we spent less than $150 on a few small rhododendrons and small trees bought at Lowes.
Although, we would have been able to create privacy quicker with larger shrubs and trees, smaller trees and shrubs typically establish themselves quickly to their new space and they are cheaper!
Privacy Patio Garden 5 Years Later
Here are some pictures of what our privacy patio garden looks like in the spring and in the fall.
I share more pictures of our spring patio garden in this post HERE.
Can you BELIEVE how beautiful this sunken privacy patio garden as filled in after only 3 years.
It has truly become a gardening oasis.
Here are some pictures from this fall.
All of the evergreens and plants we transplanted have completely filled in creating a gorgeous privacy patio garden!
I hope our sunken privacy patio garden inspires you to create a garden oasis of your own and create some a privacy screen using plants on a budget!
Let me know if you have any questions about how to create a privacy patio garden with plants!
by Tara Lehman
For more gardening ideas you can always follow along on Pinterest and save my privacy patio garden pin to your favorite backyard ideas board!
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