An informal screen gives you privacy without committing to a trimming schedule. The plants are allowed to hold their natural shape, which reads softer than a clipped hedge and takes a fraction of the maintenance.

Space plants at one and a half to two metres rather than the eighty centimetres a formal hedge needs. They will still knit together, but each plant keeps its own form and the screen reads as planting rather than a wall.

Lilly pilly, pittosporum, viburnum and callistemon all work well this way. Choose a species whose mature height roughly matches the screen height you want, so you are not fighting it later.