Fence Me In
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The final “new” fence from repurposed composite decking. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
Fence Me In
There are a number of reasons for a fence. Some are for privacy, others are decorative. A good friend said a house is not complete without a fence but a white picket fence didn’t fit my property. My fence is for decoration but it’s more there to give my growing vines a place to grow.
This is my second fence in front of my house. The original fence was built more than a couple of decades ago out of cedar cut down as we cleared my hillside property. At that time I didn’t know cedar does not last in our humid Missouri weather so it soon started to deteriorate. All that was left this spring were the original cedar posts and a few of the fence pieces.
The old cedar fence posts from trees cut off my property a couple decades ago. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
Even the cedar posts were not doing well so my handyman convinced me to replace them with treated landscaping timbers. He suggested we reuse composite decking from my old deck, already nicely weathered, and I agreed.
We also thought we could use the original cedar posts holes. It wasn’t easy for the original fence builder to get those holes into a limestone hillside so no one thought it would be any easier now.
Not all plants understand fences and fence lines! (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
Now for the design. After looking through a number of fence ideas online, we decided on the basic design: simple slats allowing the plants to grow through them.
The final design concept for this new fence reusing my old deck composite. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
Getting a start on the original design with slats. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
My wonderful handyman Robert got the fence started. Then the next day he showed me two options: a fence with the slats or one with a cut, wired cattle panel that opened the fence to the garden below.
I have several cattle panel arbors through my property so the cattle panels tied those into the overall landscape.
Decisions, decisions, do I want the slats or the open cattle panels. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
That was a tough call because I liked them both.
I didn’t want the feeling of being locked in that solid slats gave me from the house side but all arbor seemed to defeat the purpose of even having something to mark the property.
After talking to a friend who said “why not do both,” that’s what we did.
I decided to do both, giving my climbing plants a good place to grow. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
The slats give the fence structure; the wire sections open up the fence and give my climbing flowers good support.
The fence line itself is a little crooked because using dynamite to make the post holes seemed a little excessive but we were, after all, still trying to build a fence on a limestone hillside. Robert tried to straighten it out as much as he could and we called it good.
Didn’t have long to wait, these Japanese roses helped themselves. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
I love this fence design. It gives glimpses of my garden through the open cattle panel sections and structure to my growing vines. It’s also low maintenance using repurposed decking. And as an unexpected extra bonus, the fence top is wide enough to easily lean on for neighborly chats.
I can’t wait to see this new fence through the four seasons, it will have a different look as the various plants come and go.
