Why Your Fence Line Looks Empty (And Why 1-Meter Spacing Fails)

The Dilemma

A homeowner recently asked:

I recently installed a front fence and want to plant Star Jasmine or Lomandra at 1-meter intervals to keep it low maintenance. Will this spacing work to stop weeds?

The GardenOwl Diagnosis

The Scenario

You have just installed a crisp new fence—maybe a white picket or a modern vertical slat design—and now you need to dress it up. The natural instinct is to buy a handful of plants and space them out evenly, perhaps every meter (3 feet), to stretch the budget and cover the length of the boundary. You are considering Star Jasmine because you've seen it blooming elsewhere, or Lomandra for a grassy look.

However, you are noticing that the bed faces South (which, in the Southern Hemisphere, means shade), and you are worried about weeds taking over the mulch between your new plants.

This is a textbook case of The Polka-Dot Pathology coupled with a misunderstanding of solar aspect.

The Trap

There are two distinct failures happening in this plan:

1. The Spacing Trap (The Polka-Dot Effect): Planting small perennials at 1-meter intervals is the number one cause of high-maintenance gardens. When you leave that much open mulch exposed to sunlight, you are essentially building a nursery for weeds. Nature abhors a vacuum. If you don't fill that space with desirable foliage, nature will fill it with dandelions and thistle.
2. The Aspect Trap: You cannot force a sun-lover to perform in the shade. Star Jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) is a heat-seeking missile. On a cool, south-facing fence line, it won't die, but it will sulk. It will refuse to bloom, grow leggy, and fail to provide the density you need to hide the fence.

The Solution: Massing and Canopy Closure

To fix this, we need to switch from "decorating" the dirt to "engineering" a living groundcover. Here is the blueprint for a low-maintenance fence line.

1. Tighten the Ranks

Forget 1-meter spacing. If you want weed suppression, you need Canopy Closure. This means the leaves of Plant A must touch the leaves of Plant B within two growing seasons.

• The Rule: Plant at 50cm (20 inch) centers.
• The Result: Instead of a line of "lonely soldiers" saluting the street, you get a solid, cohesive green wave. This shades the soil, prevents weed seeds from germinating, and locks in moisture.

2. Respect the Shade

Since this is a south-facing boundary (the cool side), we need plants that thrive in lower light and cooler soil.

• The Hero Plant: Arthropodium cirratum (Renga Renga Lily). This is a bulletproof choice for dry shade. It has broad, lush foliage that provides a fantastic textural contrast against the thin, rigid vertical lines of a picket or slat fence. It brings a softness that fine-bladed grasses just can't match in this specific light.

3. The Grassy Alternative

If you are dead set on the fine-textured "grass" look from your inspiration photos, skip the Lomandra (which can rot in cool, damp shade) and opt for Libertia grandiflora. It gives you that architectural, spiky upright form and bright white flowers, but it is far more tolerant of the specific microclimate found on the shady side of a house.

The Diagnostic and Visualizing Safety Net

Before you commit to buying 20 plants that might hate your soil conditions, it helps to see the layout first. GardenDream acts as a safety net for your DIY projects. You can upload a photo of your fence line to our Exterior Design App, and the system will help you visualize density. It helps you see the difference between a sparse "polka-dot" layout and a proper mass planting before you spend a dime.