Northeast Gardening: Garden Photos of '09......#4, 0 by bbrookrd

bbrookrd wrote:
nutsfordaylily, I feel for you in trying to figure out the deer fence. We have 2.6 acres and we ended up only put the deer fence around part of the property. We did not try to enclose the driveway or any of the part along the road. So the entire front is open to the deer. We attached the fence from the south west edge of the house with a gate into that side big enough for a wheel barrel and then looped the deer fence through to the south side of the house and attached it to the north east corner of the house with a bigger gate on that side. I would say we have a little more than 1/2 acre enclosed. In the beginning we just had a crude gates made out of the deer fence with an metal edge (old fence post) that we bungee corded to the set post. No hinges. We just folded it back and put rocks on the bottom when it was closed to keep the rabbits out. But it worked fine until I had a run of real fencing done for aesthetics reasons over the last couple of years. I am glad we did not enclose more to begin with as it has given me time to really concentrate on the east and south gardens. More than enough to do. I added an endless stream feature to the west side last year which is not enclosed. We got some damage to it mostly in the fall and early spring, but I am trying to plant it with things that are less tasty to the critters. The entire north yard and drive are open to the marauders.

We did all the work to install the fencing ourselves. We attached as much as we could to existing pine trees, but did use green metal stakes were we had no trees. We already had a bunch of old rusty 4' and 6' metal ones that I wired together to make tall enough, which worked, but looked horrible. I wanted to see if this fence would work before spending more on it. We replaced a run of those pathetic ones last summer with proper 4"x4"x 10' posts along the most visible run of the fence, but the majority of the fence is as we strung it originally. We never put the wire at the top, which is a great idea as the fence sags over time without it. We bought a roll of it and will use it when we need to replace some sections in the future. My DH just got tired of the project. We constantly have to monitor the rabbit damage to the bottom of the fence where they eat holes in it to hop through. Plus we have to make sure that the bottom is still pegged down so that the deer and rabbits don't crawl under it. Our fence will be 8 years old this summer. We started with a 1000 feet of 8' fencing and did not use the ground post or the 9.99 round metal posts, but I think they are a good idea as they are sturdier and look better than the green metal ones. I would hate to cut that much fence and would look to find the 8' rolls. Even if more money. It is very difficult to hang the fence unless it is on a tight roll that you can stand up and stretch out as you go. It would be a mess to have to rewind after cutting to string it taunt. We used black plastic ties and used way more than I expected to. We bought a good stapler. Here is the newly replaced very visual part with the new gate and the part now strung on proper posts on the east side. All the rest, except a similar short run of decorative fence and a smaller gate on the west side, is still the original attempt with the bad posts, but it still works and it is not very visible from anywhere. Hope this helps. Good luck.

Ge1836, love the progress and layout. Patti