While wheelie bins come in handy at containing your trash, they have one major flaw—they are an eyesore, especially when they are in a direct line of vision. And with the local authorities insisting on having different colored boxes for composting, recycling, garden waste, and food waste, your collection quickly grows, and it can be a nightmare having five or more unattractive external bins scattered across your front lawn. You don’t want to stare at unsightly bins on your lawn, do you? To restore harmony in your front yard, you should hide the bins and that’s why we made this guide on how to hide wheelie bins.
How can you hide wheelie bins? There are plenty of genius ways you can go about it. Some of these ways include:
Create a store for the bins
If your yard allows it, build a store for your bins. The cool thing is that you aren’t limited on the materials you can use—use whatever is available. To avoid the bin store looking out of place or making it too conspicuous, build using the same materials you used to build your house. If possible, build the bin store in the same style as your house. If you are a dab hand at DIY projects, you can do the projects by yourself, but let a professional contractor do the work if you aren’t handy.
Place potted plants in front of the bins
The beauty of potted plants is that you can easily move them around and place them anywhere you want. For maximum effect, use tall plants that will cover most of the wheelie bin. Before planting the plants, understand their preferences. Do they grow well in your area? What are their water and sun needs? You don’t want plants that are high maintenance and will dry out after a few days. If you have a small front yard, go with large flowers to cover the bins and give your yard an inviting aroma. Pick plants with attractive leaves and interesting colors such as silvery grey and red. As you grow the plants, don’t just think about covering the bins—also think about how the plants look and the impression they give. Thankfully, you can easily move them around. Experiment with placing them in different house areas and settle on the area that gives the best look.
Screen the bins in
Don’t have money to build a bin store? No worries. How about getting a three-sided screen and hiding the bins using it? The best screens are those made from trellis panels, as they are beautiful and last for long. You should note that placing the screens around the bins isn’t enough—you need to weigh them down to prevent them from being blown away. Some of the best materials to use for this are: potted plants, trellis planers, and rectangle containers. You can leave the screens plain (as they come from the shop) or paint them to match the home theme. If you opt to keep the screens plain, it’s wise that you plant climbing plants around them. Some of the best plants you can go with are: Jasminum and Clematis. Confederate jasmine is another excellent choice as it produces inviting scented white flowers in summer that give your front yard a beautiful aroma and improve the look of the screens.
Build a wall
If you have the budget, you can build a wall to hide the no-so-eye candy wheelie bins. The beauty is it doesn’t have to be a full wall—a waist-high wall will do. And the wall doesn’t have to be expensive or have an intricate design. A simple wall made from already available materials will get the work done. You can do the project over a weekend by yourself, but if you have never done it before or aren’t confident in your skills, choose one of the best masonry contractors to help you out. When putting up a bin store, ensure that the new wall matches the rest of the home. The walls should also cover two or three sides of the wheelie bin. To improve the wall’s look, have a few plants around.
Grow a hedge around your bins
If you have decided on a permanent location for your bins, grow a hedge around your wheelie bins. You should note that most hedges take years to grow, and they need pruning, trimming, and weeding to maintain them in a pristine state. When choosing your hedging material, go with evergreens that will remain green throughout the year. You don’t want a hedge that will turn into scraggly twigs in winter, do you? Besides hiding the bins and restoring harmony in your front yard, live fences absorb the smells emanating from the garbage bins. While this is the case, the privacy and the heat absorptions provided by the live hedges attract pets, pests, and bin scavengers, so if the fence is near your house, you should be ready for pesky pests sneaking into your house.
Buy a bin box
From its name, this is a box that you place your bin in. The box has an open top and bottom and sits around your bin and shields it in. Most of the bin boxes in the market are made from PVC, and they come in standard sizes meant to hold only one wheelie bin, but you can interlock them and cover several bins at a go. This means that if you live in a flat or gated compound where the use of the garbage spot is communal, you can get multiple kits and stack them next to each other as a bin grid.
Move the bins out of view
Sometimes we work so hard to hide the bins while we only need to move them out of view. Does your home have a secretive spot where you can move the bins doing nothing else? You should do it. If you have a corner in your backyard that nobody can see or goes to, use it to your advantage and place the wheelie bins there.
So, which is your best way to hide the outdoor bins?
As you have seen, it’s easy to hide the wheelie bins from view. Before settling on the best way to hide the bins, think about the viewing angles and practicality. You don’t want to spend a lot of money on a screen or wall, and still see the bins from your bedroom, do you?
