This garden was approximately 40 mtrs long but you’d never guess that from this photo. The fence was covered in ivy and other climbing plants which had over the years helped to rot the fence and cause it to disintegrate.
The customers brief was to replace the fence, cutting back the garden and removing the vast quantity of ivy coming over the fence. We also needed to remove various limbs from overhanging trees from next door and to hold back the soil further up the garden (a previous project to provide a much needed patio had left her with a mound of soil which if left would cause the new fence to rot as well).
Our first challenge was to find the fence that existed and try to work out where the garden boundary was. We also had two drains which needed to be navigated and left so that they were accessible if necessary.
We had to remove all the waste from the garden as we went, so being in Rugby we hired a skip from Quik Skips which allowed us to get rid of the rubbish as we removed it from the garden.
Although we were taking down a panelled fence, the customer had allowed us to put back a featheredge (close-board) fence which would help us to deal with the drain covers midway up the garden. Featheredge fencing is done using knotched posts and arris rails with a gravel board base which ensures the durability and longevity of the fence. The knotched posts in a featheredge fence are usually placed 2.4 mtrs (8ft) apart, however they can go as far as 3m (10ft) apart, which allows for issues which may disallow the digging of a hole in a certain place.
The other challenges with this project was the multi-levelled nature of the garden and also the fact that the garden changed direction half way up the garden.
The garden was very overgrown when we arrived and aswell as cutting back the shrubs and overhanging growth affecting the existing fence, we also reduced a lot of the overgrown shrubs within the garden to allow more light throughout the garden.
The first half of the garden adjoined the neighbouring house and the gardens were almost level in height on both sides. However, the top end of the garden sided onto an open space which was approximately 3 feet lower than the garden we were working in – this became difficult when digging holes in a bank of soil which kept falling into itself. We had to use quite a bit of concrete to hold the fence up.
The whole project took 4 people 4 full days.
Here is a view from the other side of the garden at the top end of the garden where is overlooks an open space, as you can see there is quite a height difference which we had to mitigate for.
