Privacy Plantings That Create Beautiful, Natural Backyard Screening
Many homeowners searching for backyard privacy ideas begin searching for alternatives to a privacy fence because they don’t want the maintenance, expense, or appearance of a traditional wood fence. Others are looking for ways to block neighboring homes, soften the view of a busy street, hide an unsightly fence, or simply create a backyard that feels more peaceful and secluded.
Thoughtfully designed privacy plantings provide a natural solution that becomes more beautiful every year. Unlike wood fences that require staining, repairs, and eventual replacement, a well-designed living privacy screen continues to mature, fill in, and add value to your property season after season.
At Scott Flanagan Landscape, we don’t believe privacy comes from planting a single row of trees. It comes from thoughtful landscape design that blends evergreen screening, ornamental trees, flowering shrubs, and perennials into a landscape that looks natural, provides year-round interest, good privacy, and enhances the beauty of your home.
Our Landscape Company Philosophy: Listen Design. Create.
Every successful landscape begins with listening.
Unlike many landscape companies that spend just a few minutes measuring your property before leaving & e-mailing quote whenever they find the time, we dedicate approximately 90 minutes to every initial consultation. We believe the best landscapes are created by understanding your property, your goals, and your budget before a design is ever put on paper.
To help us make the most of your appointment, we ask that you have three copies of your plat of survey available when we arrive. These are an important part of our design process.
Listen
During the first 30 minutes, we’ll walk your property together to understand exactly what you’re trying to accomplish. Whether you’re looking to block neighboring homes, screen second-story windows, soften the view of a busy street, create privacy around a patio or pool, or simply make your backyard feel more secluded, every successful privacy planting begins with listening.
We’ll evaluate sun and shade conditions, drainage, existing trees and vegetation, sight lines, property boundaries, and the areas where privacy matters most. As we walk the property, we’ll make notes directly on one copy of the plat of survey you provide so every screening objective, design idea, and site condition is documented in its exact location.
Design
For the second 30 minutes, we’ll sit down together and begin transforming your goals into a custom privacy planting design. We’ll review our portfolio of completed privacy landscapes, discuss evergreen screening trees, ornamental trees, flowering shrubs, perennial gardens, and layered planting strategies that create natural privacy while enhancing the beauty of your home.
We’ll discuss why certain plants are recommended, how quickly they’ll mature, and how they’ll work together over time to provide the right balance of screening, beauty, and low-maintenance care. Every recommendation is tailored to your property, your privacy goals, your maintenance preferences, and your investment budget.
Before leaving your home, we’ll outline a scope of work based on the goals you’ve shared and prepare a preliminary estimate using our current pricing database. During your first 90-minute consultation, we’ll answer the question, “What will my privacy planting project cost?” before you have to commit to a custom landscape design.
After your consultation, your landscape designer returns to our office to develop custom privacy planting concepts based on everything we learned during our visit. At our next meeting, we’ll review those ideas together, gather your feedback, and continue refining the design until every detail reflects your property, your lifestyle, and your vision for a more private outdoor space. Our goal is to create a privacy landscape that’s uniquely yours and exceeds your expectations for years to come.
Create
Once your custom privacy planting design is complete, our experienced installation team brings it to life with the same care and attention that went into designing it.
Many members of our crew have been with Scott Flanagan Landscape for more than a decade and have extensive horticultural training and hands-on experience. They don’t simply plant trees where they’re shown on a plan; they evaluate field conditions, understand how plants mature, and make thoughtful adjustments that help your privacy planting establish quickly and thrive for decades.
Throughout installation, our landscape designers remain actively involved and are available whenever needed. Together, our designers and installation team ensure every tree, shrub, perennial, and screening plant is positioned not only to match the original design, but to provide the beauty, function, and long-term privacy it was intended to achieve.
That’s the advantage of combining educated, experienced landscape designers with a highly trained installation team. The result is a privacy planting that’s built for long-term beauty, lasting screening, and decades of enjoyment.
Great Privacy Landscape Designs Begin with a Deeper Understanding of Your Project
By the time we leave, we don’t simply understand where you want privacy—we understand why you want it and how you want your outdoor living spaces to function.
You’ll leave with much more than a preliminary estimate. You’ll have a deeper understanding of the landscape design process, the advantages of different privacy screening options, how trees and shrubs mature over time, and why thoughtful design creates better long-term results than simply planting a row of trees along the property line.
That philosophy has guided Scott Flanagan Landscape and thousands of homeowners throughout thousands of completed projects for over 30 years, and it is the reason every project begins the same way:
Listen. Design. Create.
Protecting Your Landscape Investment With Our Industry-Leading Plant Warranty
A professionally designed landscape is an investment, and our goal is to help that investment thrive long after installation is complete.
Across the landscape industry, it’s common to see a one-year warranty on trees and shrubs, while perennials are typically excluded from warranty coverage altogether. At Scott Flanagan Landscape, we take a different approach by combining proper plant selection, seasonal planting practices, and ongoing landscape care to maximize long-term success.
One of the best times to install trees, shrubs, and perennials is during the fall. Cooler temperatures and increased natural moisture allow plants to establish strong root systems before the stresses of summer return. Because fall planting consistently produces excellent results, we reward homeowners who choose this season with a 10% discount on qualifying plant material and an extended two-year warranty on all trees and shrubs installed during the fall planting season.
Perennials require regular seasonal maintenance to perform at their best, which is why most landscape companies don’t warranty them. Homeowners enrolled in our Perennial Gardening Program, including seasonal cleanups and mid-season maintenance, receive a one-year warranty on all perennials we install. By combining professional maintenance with thoughtful plant selection, we’re able to confidently stand behind our work and stand beside our clients, helping their landscapes thrive and protecting their investment for years to come.
Choosing the Right Tree for the Right Location
Many homeowners begin researching the best trees for privacy expecting there to be one perfect answer. The reality is that the right privacy tree depends entirely on your property and your goals.
Some homeowners need screening in a narrow side yard where mature width is limited. Others want to block second-story windows, soften the appearance of a fence, create shade around a patio, or establish privacy around a swimming pool. Every situation requires a different solution.
At Scott Flanagan Landscape, we select privacy trees based on mature size, growth habit, sunlight, drainage, soil conditions, and long-term maintenance rather than simply choosing the fastest-growing tree. Emerald Green Arborvitae, Green Giant Arborvitae, spruce, pines, ornamental trees, and native Illinois species all have their place when used in the right location.
Our goal isn’t simply to install privacy trees. It’s to create a landscape that provides the screening you need today while continuing to grow into a beautiful, healthy landscape you’ll enjoy for decades.
Layered Privacy Plantings vs. One Row of Arborvitae
One of the most common requests we receive is, “We’d like a row of Arborvitae along our property line.”
While Arborvitae are excellent privacy trees, the best privacy landscapes rarely rely on a single species or a single row of plants. Nature doesn’t grow in straight lines, and your landscape doesn’t have to either.
By layering evergreen trees with ornamental trees, flowering shrubs, grasses, and perennials, we create privacy landscapes that feel more natural while providing year-round color, beauty, seasonal interest, and greater visual depth. This layered approach also allows us to strategically screen unwanted views while preserving desirable ones, creating outdoor spaces that feel open and inviting rather than enclosed.
Layered privacy plantings also provide practical benefits. A diverse planting is more resilient to insects, disease, and changing weather conditions than relying on a single species throughout the entire landscape. If one plant struggles, the overall screen remains attractive and functional.
At Scott Flanagan Landscape, we don’t simply design privacy screens. We design complete landscapes, long term solutions, where privacy is just one part of a beautiful outdoor environment.
How Long Until My Privacy Planting Works?
One of the first questions homeowners ask is, “How long will it take before I have privacy?” The answer depends on the plants selected, their size at installation, and how quickly you’re hoping to achieve screening.
Some evergreen privacy trees can provide meaningful screening almost immediately, while others are chosen because they mature into healthier, longer-lasting landscapes over time. During the design process, we’ll discuss the advantages and tradeoffs of different plant varieties so you can choose the approach that best fits your goals and budget.
At Scott Flanagan Landscape, we don’t design landscapes to look their best only on installation day. We design them to become more beautiful with each passing year. By considering mature size, growth rate, spacing, and long-term health, we create privacy plantings that continue to fill in naturally while remaining attractive and easy to maintain.
Sometimes the best investment isn’t the fastest-growing tree—it’s the tree that will still be thriving and complementing your landscape twenty years from now.
Common Privacy Planting Mistakes
Many privacy planting problems don’t appear until years after installation. Trees planted too close together become overcrowded, plants selected for the wrong site begin to decline, and fast-growing varieties often outgrow the space they were intended to fill.
Another common mistake is assuming that bigger is always better.
Large specimen trees can create an impressive first impression, but every tree depends on a healthy balance between the root system below ground and the canopy above it. When a mature tree is harvested from a nursery, a significant portion of its root system is left behind. Although the tree may look impressive on installation day, it often spends years rebuilding its root system before it can fully support the canopy above. During that time, growth may slow, portions of the canopy may thin, and the tree may not perform as homeowners expect.
At Scott Flanagan Landscape, our understanding of horticulture extends below the surface. We consider not only how a tree will look on the day it’s planted, but how its roots, branches, and overall structure will develop over the next several decades. In many situations, selecting a slightly smaller, healthier specimen results in faster establishment, stronger long-term growth, and a more beautiful landscape. While it may not create the biggest first impression, it often surpasses larger transplanted trees within just a few years and continues to perform for decades to come.
Experienced People. Thoughtful Leadership. Quality Installation.
A great landscape design deserves an equally great installation.
Scott Flanagan Landscape is built around a six-person installation team, many of whom have been with our company for one or even two decades. That experience allows our crews to work efficiently while maintaining the attention to detail that every landscape deserves.
Our team is supported by two university-trained landscape designers who understand not only how a project should look when it’s finished, but also how every tree, shrub, and perennial will continue to mature for years to come.
For larger landscape installations, we often dedicate our entire team to a single project to maximize efficiency and maintain consistent quality. For smaller projects, we may divide into two three-person crews so we can better serve multiple clients without sacrificing craftsmanship.
Regardless of the project’s size, there is always a dedicated landscape designer on-site or within approximately 15 minutes of your project. Scott is actively involved in every installation, providing quality control, answering questions, and making design decisions in real time whenever they’re needed.
That level of involvement helps ensure the landscape we install is the same landscape we designed—beautiful, functional, and built to exceed your expectations.
Why Homeowners Choose Scott Flanagan Landscape
Whether you’re looking for privacy plantings, privacy trees, screening trees, backyard privacy ideas, or a natural alternative to a privacy fence, the success of your project depends on much more than simply choosing the right plants. It requires thoughtful landscape design, horticultural expertise, and an understanding of how your landscape will continue to grow and mature for years to come.
At Scott Flanagan Landscape, our university-trained landscape designers create custom privacy landscaping solutions tailored to your property, your lifestyle, and your budget. From layered evergreen screening and Arborvitae to ornamental trees, flowering shrubs, and perennial plantings, every recommendation is made with your long-term success in mind.
From your initial 90-minute consultation through the final day of installation, our experienced installation team and landscape designers remain actively involved to ensure your project is installed exactly as it was designed. The result is a landscape that provides year-round privacy, enhances curb appeal, increases property value, and becomes more beautiful with every passing season.
That is the difference thoughtful landscape design makes.
That is the Scott Flanagan Landscape philosophy.
Listen. Design. Create.
Serving Chicago's Southwest Suburbs with Custom Privacy Plantings
Scott Flanagan Landscape designs and installs custom privacy plantings, privacy trees, natural privacy screens, and backyard screening landscapes throughout Chicago’s southwest suburbs. Whether you’re looking to block neighboring homes, create privacy around a patio or swimming pool, soften the view of a busy street, or replace a traditional privacy fence with a beautiful living landscape, our university-trained landscape designers will create a solution tailored specifically to your property.
We proudly serve homeowners in Mokena (60448), Frankfort (60423), New Lenox (60451), Tinley Park (60477, 60487), Orland Park (60462, 60467), Orland Hills (60487), Homer Glen (60491), Manhattan (60442), Lockport (60441), Oak Forest (60452), Flossmoor (60422), Homewood (60430), Lemont (60439), and Darien (60561).
If you’re searching for privacy landscaping, screening trees, Arborvitae, evergreen privacy trees, backyard privacy ideas, or a trusted landscape designer near you, we’d love the opportunity to show you how thoughtful landscape design can create a more beautiful, functional, and private outdoor living space.
Listen. Design. Create.