Privacy is always high on the wish list. Here are best ways to mark out your garden boundaries

Fences and hedges are the usual ways in which we protect and define our properties, unless we are lucky enough to inherit lovely old stone or brick walls. If you need to replace – or indeed install – a boundary, often the sheer scale of the purchase can mean that cheap, but not always cheerful, is the order of the day.

If you want privacy quickly, a fence is the obvious solution, although if you hanker after a green barrier, instant hedging is certainly available. Elveden Instant Hedging is supplied by Practicality Brown and comes in a range of varieties, including beech, yew, box and holly. This is not cheap, of course; a 10m (32ft) run of 1.6m-tall (5ft 2in) yew hedging will cost about £150 per metre, depending on location. Ready Hedge also do instant hedging in troughs. Their hornbeam hedge at 1.3m (4ft) is £43 plus VAT per metre.

Less expensive, but also providing a lovely green frame for your garden, are the instant ivy fences from Impact Plants, which are about £73 for a metre. These are, in effect, security fences too, as an invisible 5mm welded-mesh frame runs through the middle – crime prevention officers sing their praises. The advantage over a hedge is that they remain at the height of the wire, so no Leylandii-type battles with these. You can buy the screens up to 4m (13ft) high, yet they are only 20cm (8in) wide, so they give solid screening but don't impact on precious garden space. You trim them, as with a hedge, once a year to keep a neat, uniform barrier. This type of fencing has much appeal for wildlife and quickly becomes a hot spot for nesting birds. It would probably last five times as long as a solid timber fence.

Relentless runs of brand new monotone fencing can overwhelm a space that you are endeavouring to make into paradise. Planting a hedge is the cheapest way to create a green barrier, but this will take time. A wire fence running down the middle of a newly planted hedge can be tolerated in privacy terms for less visible parts of the garden for the first four years or so, until the hedge reaches above eye level. All hedges, even yew which hates wet, respond rapidly to irrigation during dry periods in summer, so lay some good-quality drip-line irrigation pipe such as those supplied by Kosmos Hedges. These respond with extra growth if they have their sides trimmed annually.

But if it has to be fencing, there are affordable and attractive panels around. Jacksons Fencing has two excellent newer styles. The Venetian panel fence, £65 for a 1.83m x 1.83m (6ft) panel, was used in the Catherine Howard Garden at this year's Hampton Court Flower Show. It looks good standing alone, but its horizontal slats are quickly entwined with plants to give total privacy. The firm's Paliframe panels, £67 for 1.83m x 1.83m, have vertical slats with small gaps; again, a world away from the orange-stained, ubiquitous larch lap panel fencing. Do also look at B&Q's woven hazel panels: the Grange Hazel Range is £309 for a kit of three panels complete with posts that forms a screen 1.8m (6ft) high and 5.4m (18ft) long.

I often work with gardens where the owners have inherited a less-than-beautiful close-board fence. I paint these with a dark, khaki-green, opaque, Demidekk stain by Jotun. This will cover concrete posts too, is available in any colour and has a repaint interval of 12 years. Next, I fix a trellis panel, painted in a soft hue (also one of the Jotun range) to the face. This may be fixed to existing or new posts and topped with some fabulous finials from Thornwood Designs.

Whichever route you take to create barriers, almost invariably your garden will appear to grow in size as your boundaries recede.