Windbreak for garden, balcony & terrace

The fresh breeze in the garden is something nice, especially when in the hot summer. A constant, slightly cold draft, on the other hand, can quickly spoil the beautiful summer evening atmosphere, especially if the neck starts to hurt at some point. A high-performance windbreak can therefore extend the summer, and you can use it in many different ways on the balcony, terrace or garden.

Windbreak for the balcony

A wide range of wind protection solutions for the balcony are commercially available. Here is an overview, the ideal solution looks different for every balcony:

  • Various coverings for wind-permeable balcony railings (from approx. €10)
  • Wind protection awnings, which turn out to be simple awnings (from approx. €15)
  • Wind protection screens: small partition walls on two legs (from approx. €25)
  • Side blinds to pull down (from approx. €30)
  • Fold-out wind protection compartments (from approx. €50)
  • Fold-out side walls for front balconies (from 75.00)
  • Permanently installed side walls, made of glass, with an aluminum frame and made of almost any other conceivable material (from around €150 per square meter)
  • Vertical awnings with aluminum guides and coverings made of wind and weatherproof material (from approx. €200)

All of these models will certainly serve their purpose if you want to keep out the gentle breeze that makes you shiver in the evening. However, if your balcony is in a wind aisle, where there are often noticeable gusts of wind, the ridiculously lightweight wind protection screen will probably say goodbye over the parapet, and the sun sail disguised as a wind protection awning will no longer be much fun. Then you should insist on precise statements about what the windbreak can withstand.

You don’t have to buy screens for wind-permeable balcony railings at all, you can also make them yourself. Perhaps even made of a smarter material than that used in commercially available railing cladding. Wind protection nets are used as site fence screens, which are sold with precise information about the wind break. These nets are rot-proof and temperature-resistant, dimensionally stable, lightfast and UV-resistant. They are sold in various weights (e.g. 150 grams per square meter with around 72 percent windbreak and 150 grams per square meter with around 80 percent windbreak) and up to a dozen different colors and can be easily attached using integrated buttonhole strips or fastening clips.

Even if 12 colors are already quite a comfortable offer, such wind protection nets are not really individualistic. If you spend a lot of time on your balcony and therefore would like to have your own individual solution that you really like, you can also have any fabric provided with eyelets and attach your own windbreak cladding for the balcony railing.

For nature lovers there is also interesting material to buy off the roll that you can attach to your balcony railing. You can e.g. B. fall back on roll material made of willow or swamp heather, tree bark, bamboo or reed.

Make windbreaks for the terrace yourself

If there are appropriate fastening options, all the suggestions made for the balcony also represent a possibility of attaching a windbreak for the terrace.

If there is a lot of wind movement on the terrace on a regular basis, appropriately planted tubs can provide a more permanent wind protection solution:

  • Protection from the wind with various ornamental grasses in pots
  • Set up buckets where the wind blows
  • The number of buckets depends on the strength of the wind, the stronger, the more densely placed buckets
  • in a storm you have to expect that the grass will be “tattered” by the wind
  • some grasses are more resilient than others
  • Frost-resistant tubs with guaranteed hardy ornamental grasses can overwinter on the terrace
  • If that is not possible, you should opt for types of grass that are cut very short and placed in the basement over the winter
  • Some varieties of Chinese reed (Miscanthus) are said to be windproof: “Malepartus”, “Strictus” and “Graziella”
  • tall perennials, e.g. B. Rudbeckia of the “Goldsturm” variety and goldenrods (Solidago) of the “Fireworks” variety

You can also create a windbreak, but not for exceptional loads, with a rose arch, which you can climb with roses or other climbing plants (preferably with many leaves).

windbreak planting

If it’s not just about the “warm breeze”, you would have to put a real windbreak in front of the wind. It is made up of interlocking hedges showing irregular, sparse growth forms that break up the incoming wind. Such growth is formed, for example, by wild roses, other roses, barberries, privet and buckthorn. You will be provided with a couple of dense, man-high windbreaks made of boxwood or yew to support you. A broad undergrowth of densely packed perennials that are at least waist-high also provides good support for the front row of plants.

A free-growing hedge consisting of several rows offers wind protection that is not a definite wind protection planting, but still meets increased demands. So also more of a solution for large plots of land in the country. Here it is quite conceivable that you oppose the wind with a hedge planted in several rows, which consists of various taller shrubs and smaller trees.
These are allowed to grow freely so that they have a lot to oppose to the wind. They therefore reach widths of at least three to four meters – a border planting that protects really well from the wind.

Since native plants are usually best able to cope with special loads such as unusually high winds, you should put together the free-growing hedge from such. At the same time, you create a bird protection hedge in which insects and garden birds find nesting opportunities and food.

In the city, the windbreak hedge around the property has to withstand far less. Almost every hedge will grow into an efficient windbreak here. In fact, hedges often provide more effective windbreaks than windbreak walls because their irregular surface catches the wind in an incredible number of places. You should just make sure to choose sufficiently dense hedge plants. Very well suited are z. B. from tree of life, yew, cypress, hawthorn and field maple. Deciduous hedges such as hornbeam or copper beech are a little more wind-permeable, but they are perfectly adequate for normal urban land.

Quick windbreak for the garden

Usually used as a quick protective solution, the screen is more likely to be sporty than happy in a fairly windy garden, as you will likely have to catch the screen with every gust of wind. For very gentle breezes, there are screens that have adjustable feet on the outside that can be attached to the floor. For a little more wind, however, there is also wind protection that can be set up just as quickly:

The windbreak for campers, which is three to four meters wide and about a man’s height, consists of PE fabric and erection poles and can be set up really quickly. The trick is the earth tubes that are included, which are hammered into the ground and give the erection poles a fairly secure hold. Of course, this ensemble, which is available in every camping supply store, is not a permanent solution, if the earth sleeves are hammered in the same place for the third time, nothing will probably hold up even if you blow hard. But if the party weather once again doesn’t live up to what the season should actually deliver, you can perhaps make the temperatures in the garden a bit friendlier with such a quick windbreak.

Build windbreak walls yourself

Do you dream of the typically English brick walls that so often shield English gardens from draughts? You can also brick up your windbreak, but you should then think very carefully about which stones you choose so that you don’t really feel “walled in” in your garden afterwards.

A slightly lighter-looking solution could be the windbreak wall made of gabions, which are wire baskets filled with stones. There are even special gabion fence elements that are only 20 cm deep.

Buy a ready-made windscreen

Privacy protection is always wind protection, but more or less stable depending on the wind. A bamboo windbreak can prevent leaves from blowing into the garden pond. If the breeze is going to be even slightly stronger, the ready-made windbreak should be a little sturdier.

The lighter windbreak elements after the bamboo or reed windbreak consist of frames on which delicate wicker strips made of wood, plastic or metal are stretched. The walls are therefore not closed surfaces. That’s right and quite important, if the wind were to simply hit a surface, turbulence is created that releases quite a bit of force. With the wind protection elements described here, on the other hand, the wind is only slowed down and dispersed. Similar to the hedge or the overgrown climbing element. In terms of design, these windbreak elements leave almost nothing to be desired.

The windbreak walls, which are assembled from strong wooden elements or plastic with a metal frame, are even more stable. They can certainly be used as a permanent solution. These windbreak walls are made of many different types of wood. They are between 1.80 and 2 meters high and are usually very easy to assemble.

If your windbreak wall is windproof, you would have to make sure to fasten it really well. With every light thunderstorm, enormous forces act on the windbreak. If possible, screw the posts securely to the adjacent wall. Alternatively, you could anchor the windbreak to the ground by placing the posts in post shoes and placing these in concrete foundations that reach at least 2 feet into the ground.

Homemade windbreak for the garden

You can first put a fence where you need wind protection and then turn this fence into a wind protection fence. So you build a fence, which can be made with additional elements for wind protection. Your fencing supplier will have a number of accessories available for this purpose.

If you don’t like the solutions offered by the fence manufacturer, you can of course cover your fence with windbreaks made from other materials. You can e.g. B. Weave strips of foil through the fence or attach privacy mats made of wind-permeable natural materials to it.

Conclusion
Wind protection in the garden can, in case of doubt, extend the gardening season considerably; nobody likes or tolerates it if they have to sit in a train all the time. In terms of the desired design, you really have a wide choice of windbreaks, right down to a windbreak wall made of lightweight building blocks that you have sculpted yourself.

Kira Bellingham

I'm a homes writer and editor with more than 20 years' experience in publishing. I have worked across many titles, including Ideal Home and, of course, Homes & Gardens. My day job is as Chief Group Sub Editor across the homes and interiors titles in the group. This has given me broad experience in interiors advice on just about every subject. I'm obsessed with interiors and delighted to be part of the Homes & Gardens team.

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