The last few weeks I don't seem to have stopped! This last week I was out every evening doing something (two talks as well!).
My mate Neil, who has been mentioned on here before when he went with me to collect my second larger greenhouse, needed a hand with his fence. So I gathered up my tools and went to give him a hand.
As you can see the old fence wasn't in a great way. Luckily he'd cleared a space for us to work and dig the holes, he'd even dug the one already. I brought my graft ( a heavy hole digging spade) and we made short work of the rest of the holes.
Luckily it was a lovely sunny morning for most of it, and in all honesty it didn't take long once we were going.
Turned out to be one of those jobs where it was lovely to take a step back at and look at what we'd done in a morning.
It's also nice that he can get that area planted up now. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with it in the coming year.
What's your favourite thing to grow against a fence?
What a difference, lovely job Kev! Favourite thing to grow up a fence would probably be a fan-trained fruit tree of some sort. Your friend's fence looks like it might be a bit shaded from that tree though so maybe just a mixed border of some sort.
ReplyDeleteI do love a bit of trained fruit so I'm with you there!
DeleteI call the long nose pointed trench spade a: " Grafter". I would plant an hedge up against the fence. Preferably one that flowers like Hypericum.
ReplyDeleteI've always called it a graft, where the phrase a hard days graft comes from? something flowering would be nice.
DeleteOur fences are all painted slate grey, which makes the plants in front stand out, I don't grow anything up my fences, I do have raspberries growing in front of a couple of panels.
ReplyDeleteFruit is always good, There is a bit of bindweed here but the looks of the soil, so I think it'll be a bit of fight whatever he grows, that said raspberries are probably the ones that could win it.
DeleteAlthough I haven't done so, I really admire those who grow fruit trees that are trained to be two dimensional by growing them up next to a fence. The branches can be pruned and then forced into one plane of growth using the fence for support. Eventually the fence can be removed giving the tree a very neat appearance but I always think they look great with the fence in place. Google says it is called "espaliering" and if I recall, you had a video of this some time ago on the backside of your shop or somewhere on your property.
ReplyDeleteI've got a fan but not an espalier, although I've always wanted to do one as well, one day I'll get one in and trained as well. The fan works from stone fruit (mine is on a plum) as they can't be espaliered properly. I do love trained fruit trees, always just feels right to me. That said my 32 cordons have become a fairly big job each summer now as they're over 10 years old!
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