Private Patios for Outdoor Living
It’s easy to add privacy to your patio with retractable shades and portable partitions or fast-growing plants that keep out the heat and offer seclusion! Here are a few ideas and options, including DIY projects that can be done in a weekend.
Curtains, Shades and Awnings
Since our patios and decks provide extended living space when it’s warm outside, it’s a logical next step to create privacy when you need seclusion – a welcome refuge from a busy day at work, playing summer sports, or just errand running! From HGTV to the neighborhood Home Depot and Lowe’s in Thornton, we appropriated some of the best ideas for creating a bit of privacy behind your home!
While you can always construct a pergola or install a roof to cover your patio or deck, another option is retractable awnings or canopies. These can be motorized or manual and can reduce the number of gnats and little flying insects that love human contact! Just watching the motorized awning at ShadeFX.com makes us want one. Of course, for these you’d need the pergola, too, but you’ll find they cut down on UV rays and for west-facing patios, this is especially welcome to diminish the glare and heat of intense afternoon sunlight.
Sunesta’s Solar Shades come in a variety of colors and openness factors for varying degrees of opacity and insect protection, and the dealer serving the Northern Colorado area can answer your questions. Innovative Openings is another local shade and screen provider to Erie homeowners offering a variety of designer fabric choices.
Be sure to check with the good folks at PCMS, your HOA, for any restrictions, stipulations or preferred vendors.
Screens and Partitions
For a less permanent screen option, consider Versare outdoor wicker partitions or configurable wicker screens (available through Walmart – there’s one in Lafayette). The woven textures and colors are elegantly designed and fit into just about any natural setting or surrounding.
You can also find wooden partitions, like this four-paneled acacia wood screen or wrought iron that is sturdy enough to hold climbing vines including several varieties of clematis. If clematis isn’t your thing, there are bodacious breeds of honeysuckle vine with red tubular flowers that attract delicate fluttering hummingbirds.
Plants and Vines
From the semi-permanent to the completely portable – with or without a wheeled dolly – plants and vines, especially the fast-growing kind, can provide lush, attractive, privacy with a carbon dioxide bonus!
Technically, all bamboo plants are grasses. Fargesia rufa or “Green Panda” is more of a clump bamboo that grows to eight or 10 feet tall, with dark green leaves. Here in Colorado, it can serve as a great screening plant in a hedge, or as a stand-alone plant.
You can get bamboo from The Tree Farm Nursery and Garden Center in Longmont – either Rufa Bamboo or Yellow Groove The maximum elevation for bamboo varieties is 6,000 feet, and as luck would have it, we’re at about 5029 feet. Yellow Groove can reach up to 25 feet, so will provide great privacy – but it will need lots of sunlight and mulch to protect the roots since the species is not from North America.
For more ideas for patio privacy, check out HGTV’s collection of 18 suggestions, from stand-alone curtain rods and pop-up gazebos to a freestanding living plant wall and faux hedges!
Creating Outdoor Space Colliers Hill!
The master-planned community of Colliers Hillfeatures multiple design and floor plan choices, as well as backyard options for outdoor living. Stop by and tour the beautiful model homes from KB Home, Century Communities and Richmond American Homes – and coming soon – Boulder Creek! Priced from the $400s, this fast-growing new home community in Northern Colorado has lots of exciting amenities!
