How about a woven twig fence? Do you have access to slender brances?

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:130287}}

If you have a lumber mill in the area, usually they have a pile of cut-off that they give away, it could be planks with the bark still on, anywhere from 4-6 ft long and 4-8 inches wide. They make a great, interesting fence. We put one in front of our compost area to hide it.

Sandy

Free fence boards. I drug home over 400 of them on trash days (I needed about 300, but after hanging for a lot of years, about 20% couldn't be used) to build the fence on my slope. Someone here suggested calling a fence company, who could have plenty from a single job that you might get for free. If wind is an issue, just put them farther apart. They can be cut up and made into a custom lattice. Can you post a photo of the area?

Tell everyone you know you're looking for a big screen. Almost everyone has something laying around they don't know what to do with.

There are a lot of interesting fence ideas on Google Images. Look up funky fences or funny fences there. Linda

{{gwi:130289}}

People here have used one piece of cattle fencing ora pig panel to make things. You could grow a vine on them.
I heard they are not expensive, but I haven't priced them myself - one of the many things on my possibilitys list.
Kathy

I think it all depends on what materials you have access to. If you don't want to rake, then to me that means it will need a cover of some sort to keep the leaves out, and possibly more solid/less open sides. In my area people offer old doors frequently. I'd go for an arbor-type design with doors on the sides, and half doors in the front to make it look like a person would be walking through a gate, but instead of a gate the barrels and items would be behind it.

jeannespines made a beautiful arbor that way, shown here:
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/junk/msg070045399839.html

Now just picture the half doors in front and back to hide the unsightly items, and a cover sloped from front to back to keep the rain and leaves out. Put a hinge on the cover so you jut have to lift it up to access the items from the top, add a hook and eye or some sort of mechanism to hold it up and not come crashing down on your head or hand while working.

Put shade plants/vines (it's under a tree, so I'm assuming some kind/lots of shade) on the sides to climb up it, or hang window boxes at the half height level to trail down.

This would still work with just the partial door sections in a square or octagon shape, too.

On craigslist they have free pallets, you could use wood from them. Blessings, Kim :)

Those free wood pallets could be dismantled and decorative yard signs could be made from them.

The first time I read the title of this post, I immediately thought "from when they go to thrift
shops and yard sales" but that was NOT the case LOL
I have been known in the past to 'hide' things from
doing that!!

I have a friend who made a fence of old skis.

LOL-nonacook!
I thought the same thing- ok, fess up, who hides their thrift days finds when they get home, or at least sneak them in?

How many days have you left things in the trunk, using that as a hiding place!?

I don't sneak my finds in because hubby-to-be likes junk too. However, I try to keep the garage doors closed because we have so much junk in there. We park the cars outside because there's no room in the garage. That's not good because we live in Minnesota!

I love the twig fence idea. I'm going to keep that idea on file. Thanks for sharing tasymo.