On the Fence
August 7th, 2012
Fences sometimes are a necessity when fast privacy is in order, especially in small yards and packed-in developments where bare decks seem like stages.
Dressing up a fence, Buffalo-style.
While fences get the job done, they can act more as prison walls if you don’t dress them up.
Nobody does this better than the city gardeners on Buffalo’s west side.
Buffalo is the unlikely home of America’s biggest garden tour. One thing common among the 384 gardens that were on display this year was the many creative ways Buffalonians are dealing with their fences.
I’m just back from leading a 3-day Lowee’s bus tour to see the 17th annual Garden Walk Buffalo and thought I’d share some of this northern creativity with you and your fences.
The most obvious fence-dresser was vines, which give eye-level color and screening while taking up hardly any garden space.
Some folks were growing self-climbers like English ivy, Boston ivy and climbing hydrangea right up fences and walls, but most have erected trellises or similar supports for twiners (clematis and climbing roses being the most common).
Fence-decorating a la inside wall.
One gardener was growing a trumpet creeper up a dead tree. Another was growing climbing roses up lattice panels that were inserted in place of solid panels at strategic points along the fence. And another was using what looked like a mounted metal bed frame.
Lots of gardeners were decorating their fences much as people do their inside walls.
I saw faux window frames, stained-glass plaques, colorful dishes, butterfly boxes, assorted “found” objects, mirrors and even pictures and paintings – although I’m not sure if they stay mounted out there all season.
Flat-backed hanging baskets and pots were other common fence-mounts. They hug fences nicely and allow for billowing flowers of all sorts to give color to otherwise barren space.
One clever woman with a birdhouse collection solved two dilemmas by painting a big tree on a bare wall and then “hanging” birdhouses from hooks mounted from the painted branches.
Birdhouses "hanging" from a tree.
My favorite fence eye-grabber was the GroVert vertical planting box that one gardener had mounted on his wooden fence. The plastic box is like a tray with 40 compartments for plants. This gardener framed two of them side by side in wood and planted it all with succulents in a pattern. It looked like a living picture.
Another food-oriented gardener took matters into his own hands by making a vertical planter out of an old wooden skid. He stood the skid on end, propped it against a wall, stapled burlap under the openings to act as little bag-like soil-holders, then planted herbs and veggies. Voila… a cheap vertical edible garden that also dresses up a skinny bare spot.
Yet another innovate fence example was the fellow who built a potting shed up against his fence and then enclosed it with painted lattice. Hanging potted plants dress up the sides. The front opens to make use the potting bench and closes to make a decorative structure the rest of the time.
A succulent-planted GroVert vertical planting system.
Plenty of gardeners were using more than one of these techniques. In some cases, you could barely tell there was a fence.
Tom Palamuso of 39 Granger Place did that as well as anyone with his fences, but I liked what he was doing on his garage roof even better.
Limited in sunny space, this witty gardener built an entire container vegetable garden along the front of his back garage roof. Instead of paying $50 each for self-watering EarthBoxes, he made his own out of plastic Rubbermaid tubs with inverted lids used in the bottom to make the water reservoirs.
Then he got himself one of those wheeled library ladders that he uses for watering and harvesting – sliding along the wall as he goes.
Tom Palamuso's Library Garden.
He calls it his “Library Garden.”
For more photos of some of the interesting sights from Garden Walk Buffalo 2012, check out this Photo Gallery.