Transformer boxes, electric meters, AC units, cable cabinets – all part of a humming modern home. And all eyesores if left bare in the middle of your landscape. Repairmen and utility crews must have access, so completely covering the ugly utility boxes is not an option. But there are ways to hide them safely by making some clever adjustments in your landscape.
1. Cover Up a Transformer Box with Grasses
Ornamental grasses, like pampas grass, are elegant freestanding features in a well-planned landscape that can screen even the largest utility box. As a bonus, if left to dry out over the winter, grasses add visual interest to the winter garden and provide food and shelter for overwintering birds. Make sure you leave an access path to the hidden utility box for servicing.
2. Plant Evergreen Shrubs to Hide an Electrical Box
Use evergreens, especially the dwarf varieties, year-round to block out utility boxes. Again, as long as you make sure service people can easily get to them. Some shrubs even do well in planters, which can be placed to hide electrical boxes and the like on your home’s exterior walls.
3. Make a Screen Using a Decorative Fence
A decorative fence around three sides of your utility box or with a proper gate is also a good option for hiding larger utility boxes or AC compressors. Take care to ensure there is enough airflow for the unit to work properly. Train flowering vines to cover the fence for a beautiful and perhaps sweet-smelling solution to the problem of unsightly utility boxes.
4. Cover Your Utility Box with a Fake Boulder
Fake it until you make it with a lightweight but realistic boulder that can slip over the top of a freestanding utility box. Make the boulder the center of a Zen meditation garden or group in with other real boulders for an interesting landscape feature.
Privacy screens don’t just have to hide utility boxes – they have a host of other uses in the garden, well worth checking out.
2 thoughts on “4 Tricks for Hiding Utility Boxes”
Looking for a place to buy items that can hide electrical boxes in front yard.
Hi James,
If you do an internet search for “fake rock to hide utility box” you should find options for where to purchase artificial boulders. Otherwise, garden centers are a source for plants, and home improvement or lumber stores should have materials for constructing a fence or box.