Compartmentalize your yard using hedges, walls, or fencing

Published 12:29 pm Friday, July 25, 2025

A yard divided into segments will appear more spacious than one open lawn-covered lot, with a driveway and a tree or two. While tall hedges or fences can give privacy and add mystery to what’s behind them or around the corner, shorter hedges and walls allow a person to see the whole of the yard.

The multiple areas created for different purposes, typically having different looks, give the illusion that the total space of a yard carved up into zones is larger than it was before. 

Counting the space taken by low shrub hedges, low fences or low walls, the divided yard may actually have less square footage that can be accessed. However, the appearance is that it is bigger. And zones for gardening, zones for games, zones for grilling and eating, etc., can certainly make a yard much more multi-purpose than one big open green zone would. A cut-flower section, a zen garden, a hidden nook for privacy—there is practically no end to potential purposes for each zone or compartment you create in a yard using this technique.

The idea here is to create a series of spaces, unique and tailored to the needs of each family. The location of the doors, the walls, the walking path is not all that different from dividing up the inside of a home into compartments. Kitchen, bar, dining, living, family areas—plus privacy in the bathroom and the bedrooms which are walled off more in particular. Most folks do not live in an open barn with only the perimeter walls. Compartmentalizing a yard is similar to partitioning the insides of ones’ home.

The ‘open floor plan’ that is common in modern homes, and has been for quite a number of years, allows one to see to some extent the entire space. Yet, the space is divided into uses. If we take this to the outdoors, we would have an open yard that you could still see most of, but there would be designated spaces for various uses. 

Each homeowner can carve out areas unique to his or her needs, and the size of the yard is not really a major issue. The small city backyard can be divided for things like a BBQ grill, a bench or swing for sitting or reading, a place for tools and trash containers, and perhaps a raised bed or some large pots for flowers, herbs or veggies. And a big urban yard offers untold numbers of options for spacious family time, play time, flower or vegetable gardening, maybe even lawn frisbee or a golf practice green—or the option to wall off a space entirely from the eyes of others for privacy and intimacy.

Some additional possibilities might be play areas for small children, work spaces for the handyman, an outdoor kitchen or dining area, or a hidden spot that are revealed only after you journey from the back door, porch or patio.

Front yards are typically the more public area, and both the public and the private areas need to be in sync with the home itself. A simple front yard with a path from the sidewalk to the front door may be all that’s needed. For others, a low perimeter hedge or a picket fence may be how they want to arrange their front yard. There are a lot fewer rules and expectations when it comes to dividing up a backyard. Anything goes almost—just remember not to get it so out of tune with the appearance of the home. You don’t want your sectioned yard to detract from the main residence itself.

Cutting a yard into compartments won’t be something everyone wants to do. But, it is certainly a creative landscaping technique that you may not have considered—one that will make someone pause and say, “I think we’ll try that for our yard.”

Your home is your castle, and the yard is the grounds—so why not live in a paradise.

The author is a landscaper. He can be reached at rockcastles@gmail.com