The Friendly Fencer

Just as fencing helps gardeners with climbing plants, there’s been a wave of technology that’s been helping those with green fingers to reduce the amount of time they spend on the mundane housekeeping jobs, so that they can concentrate on the fun stuff like planting shrubs and vegetables and putting their stamp on their flower beds.

A good example is mowing the grass, something that most people have to do at least monthly through the summer, if not every weekend or two. Thanks to some clever new gadgets, that could now be a thing of the past. We spoke to John Adams from robotlawnmowers.org, a new site dedicated to these amazing machines, and asked him to tell us a bit about the appeal:

“The best thing about robotic mowers is that they save a lot of time, particularly people with very large grassed areas. Because some of the models are suitable for use all year ’round, they also allow you to have a presentable garden through the winter too, while some people might have given up mowing for the year in early October before the temperatures have fallen enough for the grass to stop growing.”

While the mowers are still quite expensive (they can set you back upwards of a thousand pounds for the top models), if you’re hiring gardeners then there’s a direct saving on their time spent mowing. You simply start them up and they’ll make their way across the lawn all by themselves, as they’ve got built in sensors to know where they’re going and where they’ve been. Even if there’s no monetary saving because you mow the lawn yourself, just think about the extra hour or two relaxing on a Saturday afternoon when you’d normally be out cutting the grass.

As fencers, we were a bit worried about an out of control mower colliding with the new fences we spend a lot of time erecting and our customers pay a lot of money for, but having seen them in action, they’re incredibly accurate and we’ve not seen a single collision!

As fencing contractors, we spend a lot of time in the open air, and especially in people’s gardens. Whether we’re replacing or repairing fencing, something we’ve noticed is the popularity of self sufficiency is growing fast (excuse the pun!).

Generally people grow veggies to the side of their gardens, unless they’re real enthusiasts, and turn their back garden into one large allotment. As we’re a little nosey as well as hard workers, we’ve noticed that people are going well beyond potatoes and tomatoes, the typical produce that you would expect to find in the average household’s veggie patch. You can learn more about these plants at http://www.vegetablegardenplanner.co.uk. There’s also been a marked increase in the ingenuity people show in making the most of a relatively small space, such as the limited size of the gardens in new build properties.

Thanks to the strong winds we’ve seen in the last year or two, we’ve been called out to more new properties than ever before, not that we’re suggesting for a second that the builders put up cheap fencing. It’s just that it seems particularly vulnerable to the wind – take from that what you will. In these gardens, we’re seeing a sort of three dimensional gardener – with plants climbing upwards as well as in the ground:

As you can see from the above video, it’s more than possible to work direct from a grow bag, but a more popular option seems to be raised beds in timber frames. These mean less back ache, normally an occupational hazard for gardeners, as you don’t need to bend down so far to tend to your produce.

When we’re erecting new fences, we sometimes struggle to save these raised beds, as some people are using the fence as the back ‘wall’ of the box. This means that when we remove the panel, there’s nothing to stop the soil falling backwards, usually into next door’s garden. In one instance, we filled next door’s pond with top soil, probably not great for the health of the fish. So, make sure your raised beds are self contained, not reliant on your garden fencing for support!

Many of Sheffield’s houses do not have an external tap available, so one of the more common tradesmen we come across when erecting fence panels is plumbers. It’s a surprisingly simple job to complete, provided you house has a traditional design, with the kitchen facing out onto the back garden.

This is due to the fact that most homes have a kitchen sink facing onto the back yard, particularly those in the traditional mining housing stock of the inner city neighbourhoods of Sheffield. A lot of them also have extensions such as off-shot kitchens, and loft conversions. This means that water pipes have often been moved already, and the most common, and by far the simplest way to achieve that is to run them around the external perimeter of the property.

All that needs to happen is to make a small hole in the external wall, usually from under the kitchen sink to the outside of the property, and spur off a small length of pipe to connect the outside tap to. You should get this job done professionally, as you’ll be dealing with pipework that carries pressurised water. You really want to avoid a leak as you can find a lot of water escapes in a very short space of time if something goes wrong. We think Ian Lawson is one of the best plumbers in Sheffield, so visit his website to get in touch if you don’t already have a trusted professional on hand.

One of the biggest mistakes people make with their garden fencing is waiting for it to fall into disrepair before they take action to protect it. We’ve talked about the metal fixings before, but the bigger problem is often the degradation of the wooden panels themselves. So, what can we do to prevent the damage, and if it’s already occurred, can they be saved?

How to protect your fencing investment

A good place to start is by applying a protective coating to the fencing when it is new, and reapplying a similar product every few years. This prevents the rain from permeating into the wood, and therefore greatly slowing down the rate at which the panels can rot. Some fencing panels come pre-treated, and you’ll probably know if this is the case because they are usually noticeably more expensive.

You can usually buy the fence paint from your local hardware store such as B&Q, or even your local supermarket if you choose the right time of the year. I had entered an online prize draw to win a supermarket gift card and been lucky, so bought some Cuprinol with the prize as it’s supposed to be long lasting even though it’s a bit more expensive than the budget options. A word of warning – be careful as my fencing had quite a bright orange glow in the weeks and months after treatment, it looks a lot lighter than it does on the tin (to borrow and tweak a competing product’s slogan)! Generally speaking the supermarkets sell wood care products for fencing in the late spring and early summer months.

What if my fence has started to rot?

If your fencing already shows signed of wear from the weather, you need to establish how bad things are. If you think its about to collapse and break up with the slightest touch, it’s probably time to call in the experts, as they’ll often take a look and give you some free advice, knowing you’ll buy from them if that’s what’s needed. On the other hand, if the panels are still sound, you can often save them by using specialist liquids. Ronseal have a couple of specialist solutions, so check out their website to get an idea of whether it’s going to solve your problem. A quick tip is to make sure the work is done after a few warm, dry days to make sure you aren’t sealing in moisture, as that might compound the problem further. You also ideally want a couple of days without rain forecast too, although that’s often easier said than done in this country!