Graham Porter’s gardening: Don’t sit on the fence over your garden boundaries

Sep 5 2009 by Jane Yelland, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

HAVE you noticed how garden fencing has changed over recent years, to the point now where there are now hundreds of different styles to suit almost any need that we might have.

Whether you need a fence or trellis to divide one part of your garden from another or just to divide your garden from your neighbour’s land, you can have almost any colour you want, any height you want, up to the accepted limit of two metres (visit www.planningportal.gov.uk for details) and any style that takes your fancy.

Go back 100 years and you would probably have been limited to a post and rail or picket fence or concrete posts and wire, unless you could afford to build a wall or you planted a hedge instead.

Go back even further in our history to the 16th century and you can clearly see the beginnings of our fanatical desire to enclose our land.

Larger landowners began enclosing pieces of common land to hold their ever increasing flocks of sheep and cattle, preventing peasant farmers from using this land for the casual grazing our their few animals.

By the mid 18th century, scores of local and private Enclosure Acts of Parliament were being passed, allowing landowners to enclose their land behind walls, fences and hedges.

The fences were usually rough split timber, often oak, chestnut or hazel, used in a post and rail style, and this process helped to create the rural landscape that we all see and enjoy today. As industrialisation and the development of urban housing increased in the early 19th century, the concept of fencing your piece of land was the accepted norm and is still with us today.

A whole variety of terms have developed over the years to describe the styles of fencing:-

Picket – If you imagine a strikers’ picket line, you can begin to understand the origins of the word. The style comes from ancient fortifications where vertical stakes were driven into the ground to prevent invasion of your land.

Thus the evolved picket style today is a simple post and rail fence with vertical pickets attached at given spacings. Each picket can have rounded, square or pointed tops and the overall effect can be straight, concave or convex, dependant on personal choice.

The height of the picket is also your choice, from small, step-over fences to 1 or 2 metres.

Palisade – This is a variation on picket fencing, often more ornate, painted and with different heights of each vertical piece – it originates from the Latin word palus, meaning stake.

Close-boarded – Similar to picket but with the vertical pickets closed together to provide a solid fence, these days often with open trellis toppings to add to the ornamental effect. In the smaller gardens of our modern housing developments, this style can create a claustrophobic feeling and will certainly cause wind turbulence and some plant damage in stormy and blustery weather.

Larch-lap – This relatively cheap and easy to erect style has been with us to many years and is still probably the most popular style of fencing for our gardens. With simple vertical supports for attaching to wooden or concrete posts. The horizontal ‘larch-lap’ is a solid fence with the same problems as close-boarded. Both styles are prone to wind damage and require more care and maintenance than other styles.

Post and rail – This is the simplest form of fencing, with posts at given intervals and horizontal rails, usually near the top, in the middle and near the bottom – used in agricultural situations even today to keep livestock enclosed.

In a garden, your imagination is the only limit on how to stylise and use post and rail.

Trellis – This style has become very popular in recent years for use as a garden divider that still allows the visitor to see the whole garden and it provides an ideal support for climbing plants.

With hundreds of different variations on height, top shapes and square or diagonal latticing, it can enhance the aesthetics of a garden and does not cause wind turbulence.

So, the next time you visit a DIY store, a garden centre, a farm or a historic display, give a little thought to all those variations on fencing styles that have evolved over the millennia into what we have today.

lFor a chance of winning tickets to this year’s Harrogate Autumn Flower Show turn to pages 22 and 23.