Is your garden more overlooked by the neighbours than you would like? You have some options.

The cheapest one, if space permits, is to plant trees. This is particularly useful if your garden is of the long and narrow variety. Plant a single tree or make a mini-grove at the far end.

Then, there are tall shrubs and hedges grown along the boundary. Planning regulations restrict the height of fencing to two metres, but there is no restriction on the height of vegetation. It must not become a nuisance to your neighbours, though.

A “hedge on stilts”, although pricey, offers an instant effect and is an increasingly popular choice for town gardens. These days, nurseries offer a wide range of species, some of them evergreen, such as Japanese privet, photinia Red Robin and cherry laurel Novita. Their branches have been trained to grow horizontally and side shoots kept short to provide a dense screen. They will require a trim a couple of times a year and a special ladder or a pruning tower may be required.

Similar to a hedge-on-stilts are round-headed ‘lollipops’. Worth considering if you don’t need a continuous screen.

Then, there are high fences or walls, and upward fence extensions, but – as mentioned earlier - anything over two metres high requires planning permission.