After living here for 9 years, we have finally decided to put up a fence. It’s an odd shaped yard, narrow at the front but widens out toward the back, and there are 5 edges. Our neighbor to the south already has a privacy fence up, and we knew we wanted privacy on the north side, but we didn’t want the back part of the garden (on the east side) to be shaded by a fence. Also we don’t need a lot of privacy back there because the length of the lot, and the plants out there already give us quite a bit of privacy. We had Town & Country Fence come out for consultation and they suggested a California chain link would serve our purpose. It’s a chain link with a wood frame.

This next photo shows where the fence has to come over off of the property line in order to accommodate the utility easement. Imagine this spot completely obscured by buckthorn. The California chain link will start here and then continue along the back side of the property. It uses the same cedar posts as the wood privacy, but will be filled in with black vinyl coated chain link.

We also have a utility easment on the south side, so we had to make sure the fence was set back far enough. Another easement at the north east corner required us to have the fence go through an area of pine trees. There is a large area of white pine and spruce trees that was completely filled in with buckthorn, which I have gradually been tackling for several years. This fence project gave me the motivation to finally finish clearing all that out. It was quite a bit of work but I’m officially declaring our yard buckthorn free after 9 years of effort!

This area of pine and spruce used to be an impenetrable wall of invasive understory plants, including buckthorn, exotic honeysuckle shrubs, and white mulberry. While it provided somewhat of a living privacy fence, it certainly wasn’t my desired way of having privacy. I first tackled all of the buckthorn that had berries, and disposed of that. Then I gradually cut down and pulled much of it over the next few years. But after measuring the easment, I realized I would have to get rid of the remainder so the fence could go through there. Good motivation for finally taking care of that! I made extensive use of my weed wrench to pull out most of it, and then used the chainsaw to cut down larger shrubs and small rogue maple trees. We wil replace that with native understory plants, such as the highbush cranberry that I have already planted.

The compost bin is at the southeast side of the pine tree area. This used to be surrounded by invasive honeysuckle which I have been meaning to cut down for quite a while. I did leave up a small dead snag that shoudl make a good perch for birds. I’d like to plant some native shrubs like common ninebark and gray dogwood here.

Continuing east along the back edge of the lot, we will have a gate between where the compost bin sits and the back section of the garden. This will allow us access to the easement, which is still on our property and we have to maintain. I think the neighbors behind us will be happy that all the buckthorn is finally gone, and the fence should look pretty nice back there. The posts were just installed two days ago, and the cement needs to cure and then they will be back out to finish it out. We’ve been very happy so far with the work that Town & Country Fence has done. Really looking forward to seeing the end result and enjoying our new private back yard!