Panel fencing is a very common and cheap way of separating your own property from your neighbours’ gardens. It’s also easy to install, as all the parts are ready-made and usually pre-treated too. You can get them in a range of sizes, though they tend to be a standard width of 1800mm (6 feet, as near as dammit) – the commonest heights are 900mm (3 feet), 1200mm (4 feet), 1500mm (5 feet) and 1800mm (6 feet). Different designs of panelling are available too, ranging from very simple horizontally overlapping laths (cheap, but not particularly strong) to more complex interweaving (sturdier, but more expensive). Screwfix have a good range:

Fencing supplies from Screwfix Direct

Speaking from bitter experience, it’s much easier to fit panel fencing if there are two of you doing it! It’s also best if you can work on both sides of the fence, so ask your neighbour. Unless you’re on bad terms with them for any reason, they’re almost certain to say yes – after all, it’s in their interest to have a neat, well maintained fence bordering their property too.

If you’re putting up panel fencing for the first time, or replacing a run of fencing including posts as well as panels, then you’ll need to put up posts and panels alternately.

Fixing posts

There are two main ways of fixing posts: either by concreting them into position, or by using hollow spikes. Either way, it’s a good idea to treat the posts first by soaking the ends in wood preserver for at least a quarter of an hour, or preferably longer.

Spikes

Using fixing spikes is straightforward, if you’ve got the brute strength required – and a sledgehammer!

Take a spike of suitable size (600mm for anything up to 1200mm high, 750mm for anything higher than that) and put a short scrap piece of post into the socket – that’s what you’ll be hammering against. Then drive the spike part of the way into the ground.

Check that the spike’s vertical (using a spirit level or plumb line) then hammer the spike the rest of the way into the ground so that only the socket is sticking out.

Put the post into the socket and secure it by either screwing it through the holes in the side of the socket or tightening the clamping bolts, if there are any.

Concreting

This is a bit more complicated, but does give a good stable way of securing your fence.

Dig a hole to a depth of about a third of the height of your fence – you’ll need to bury about a quarter of the post to ensure that it stays firmly fixed in place. A post-hole auger is a good way of digging the hole, if you can lay your hands on one – otherwise, you’ll just have to dig it with whatever you’ve got to hand.

The next step is to put a layer of hardcore at the bottom of the hole to support the post and allow for drainage. You should ram it down well to minimise movement through settlement.

Then put your post into the hole, making sure it’s upright. Carry on adding hardcore to the hole and ramming it down until the hole is about 300mm/1ft deep.

You’ll need to ensure the post remains upright while you’re building the fence, and you do this using struts wedged against the post on either side. Adding the concrete comes at the end, when all the panels and posts are in position.

Fixing panels

This is where the second person comes in! Support the panel above ground level (to prevent the panel from coming into contact with the wet ground and rotting), then have your helper hold the end of the panel firmly against the post while you skewnail through the panel frame into the post at the top, middle and bottom – on each side, if you can. (If you’d rather, you can use screws and metal angle brackets instead of nails.)

Panels generally come provided with capping strips at the top of each panel to stop the rain soaking into the grain of the wood and causing rotting. If yours haven’t, then you’ll need to buy some and nail them along the top of the panels.

Finishing off

Cut the posts to the correct length – a little above the top of each panel – and nail caps to the top of each post.

If you’re concreting in your posts, now’s the time to do it! Mix your concrete to  the proportions 1 part of cement to 2 parts of sand to 3 parts of aggregate. Add the concrete a bit at a time and keep tamping it down to eliminate any pockets of air. Build it up to just over the level of the soil, and slope it away from the post to allow water to run off and help stop rotting. You can remove the struts after about a week, when the concrete’s fully set.

When should I prune?

The best time is just after your shrub or bush has finished flowering, or (if it flowers in autumn or early winter) at the end of winter – before the sap starts to rise. (If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, then come back in six months’ time; if you’re in the tropics, then winter doesn’t come into it.)

How much should I prune?

That’s a vexed question for most people, who are understandably scared that they’ll kill their favourite bushes. “Be bold!” is the answer. Cut back by half in the first year, and by a third in subsequent years, until your bush or shrub reaches the height you’re after.

By pruning hard, you’re encouraging thicker, denser growth – so you’ll end up with a sturdy bush rather than a straggly one. It’ll take longer, but the results will be worth it.

On the other hand, to ensure that your plant stays healthy you should remove any shoots that cross other ones, or rub against them. Thick growth is good – congested growth is bad.

And get rid of any dead wood!

Where should I make my cuts?

About a centimetre above the the bud whose growth you want to promote. Choose inward-facing buds where you want your shrub to grow more densely, outward-facing buds where you’re trying to avoid congestion or encourage a bit more spread.

Is there anything I shouldn’t prune?

There are a few shrubs and trees which may not respond very well to pruning in every case. But 90% of garden shrubs will be fine, as long as you do it at the right time as described above. And even the other 10% are unlikely to be killed off altogether.

If you’ve got a large tree in your garden and are concerned about its growth, then you may be better off consulting an expert tree-surgeon rather than risk branches crashing down onto greenhouses or worse.

Good luck!

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It will be Christmas soon and I love decorating my house with holly, but my holly never seems to produce any berries, am I doing something wrong?

As Christmas approaches and people plan for the event, this is a question which comes up around this time every year. Fear not – we have the answer.

It’s all to do with sex. The sex of the holly, that is. You usually need a male plant and a female plant. Unless the plant is a self-fertile female or a hermaphrodite. It’s a bit complex, especially when male plants have names like “Silver Queen” and a reliable female holly plant is the variety “Golden King”. Confused?

For a full explanation you can click through to one of our other websites, where our gardening expert has written a simple but detailed explanation:

Holly comes out at Christmas

How big do they grow? An avocado stone has started to grow in our compost heap and I have potted it on. I know they grow in warmer climates than Tyneside so I wondered if I could put it in a pot and grow it inside. The top floor landing has about a 20ft ceiling but it tapers so it would be a jungle.

Or should I just plant it in the garden in spring next year and let it take its chances? We grow our own plums and apples – it would be good to add avocados.

You’ll need a large flowerpot, perhaps 8 or 10 inches across, filled with good soil to about 2 inches from the top. Make a small hole in the centre and place the stone (roots down) into the hole. You will need to have the bottom of the stone in the soil, and the top half in the open air. Keep it watered, and watch it grow. Over time, you will need to re-pot the plant as it grows larger.

After some years, the tree may grow as tall as 20 feet; however, you would need to have this outside as most houses do not have enough room and you will not be able to find a pot large enough to accommodate the tree.

My suggestion would be to grow the tree to about 3 feet inside your house, then transfer to your garden.

Fruit of an Avocado

It is possible that your tree will never bear fruit. But I suspect that it will, if you look after it at the sapling stage. In warmer climates (such as the Caribbean or Australia) I would suggest that an avocado might do better than in a cold climate such as ours, but what the heck, you might as well grow it!

Some fruits are hybrids designed not to produce fruiting seed – so you’ll be able to get a plant to grow from them, but it won’t be able to reproduce (i.e. create more fruit). This is often the case with seeds that you buy for vegetables etc – F1 hybrids denote that they’re good only for producing crops, not for creating new plants – so don’t be too disappointed if you wait several years, then nothing comes of it.

Having said that, I’ve successfully grown kumquat from a supermarket fruit before, lemons are pretty easy, so I don’t see why avocado shouldn’t also be straightforward.

Good luck!

1. Much cheaper to erect than a brick wall
2. Much quicker also!

To make a fence stable, it must be fixed to posting. The most common type of posts are made of timber, concrete and sometimes metal. One way of installing posts is to use metal “skewers” which are hammered into the ground – though this is hard work to get aligned correctly.

I prefer posts to be bedded directly into the ground and then concreted in for stability – obviously, the taller the post, the deeper the concrete footing needs to be to hold it securely in place.

WARNING! Don’t have all the posts cemented in before attaching the panels, because you’ll find the panels won’t fit the gaps precisely. Go fence panel by fence panel!

Fence Panels

Panelled timber fencing comes in all sorts of styles:

• close-board
• larch lap
• picket
• trellis

are just a few!

Other types of fence don’t come “panelised” – these include:

• feathered edge
• bamboo
• rail

Panel-less fences take much longer to build as each piece of timber has to be dealt with separately.

I have also seen fences made out of trees that have been felled. If you watch an episode of River Cottage, you would have seen this being done by Hugh and a friend. This method also enables more light into your property (as you have felled trees to make the fences)…

Installing a Fence

The key requirements of a fence are that it should be vertical and straight. The best way to achieve straightness is by using a laser guide to mark out where you want the fence to run. If you do not have a laser guide, a taut piece of string attached to a ground peg either end will do just fine.

For getting fence panels vertical, you simply need to make sure that you install the fence posts absolutely true. For this, use time, patience and a good spirit level.

After-care

Be sure to treat your fence (assuming it’s wooden!) with a good preservative. You can find these at all garden centres and DIY shops. A good one is Cuprinol, for example.

To help prevent rot, leave a gap between the bottom of your new fence and the ground. The gap need only be an inch or so.

The majority of movement that occurs to property is caused by the broadleaved varieties, but not always. The mechanisms of damage are varied but root growth and associated drying out of the subsoil are, by far, the most common. The Institute of Structural Engineers say that 80% of subsidence claims on shrinkable sub-soils are due to trees and shrubs close to the property; some believe this to be an underestimate.

The risk of damage by different species:

The above table is designed to assist recognising defects to a property and should not be used to design a planting scheme. Advice should always be obtained from a registered arboriculturalist prior to planting large trees near any structure.

Trees use prodigious amounts of water to live and grow; furthermore trees require substantially more water during the growing season. Fast growing varieties can require over 455 litres (100 gallons) per day.

Tree root damage occurs principally on shrinkable clay soils. As a rough guide you can test your own soil to establish if it is a clay soil by obtaining a clod of earth from approximately 60cm below ground level approximately 8cm in diameter and place in water overnight. If the sample remains intact the probability is that the sample is a shrinkable clay soil. Clay soils will crack in the summer and the soil will be solidly firm (almost rock hard). When moist, the clay soil will stick to your spade; when digging the garden, a clay soil will also feel greasy and will be easily moulded when moist.

I have movement with trees nearby – what should I do?

If your house has settled because of tree related movement you could cause significantly more damage by removing all the trees at once, as you could experience heave. Heave is a form of structural movement, which is the opposite of settlement. A phased removal of the trees is often the only way to proceed. We would advise that you contact a chartered building surveyor and/or a registered arboriculturalist for advice on tree removal; a structural engineer or building surveyor would also be able to advise if any remedial work is required to the building fabric or foundations.

Sick Trees

Trees do cause other damage to buildings through direct contact, where branches and trees fall on property. Any tree that could cause direct damage to a dwelling should be carefully watched. If branches appear weak or if the canopy of the tree is incomplete it can suggest that the tree is diseased. Diseased trees should be dealt with immediately as there is a possible risk of injury and damage to the building.

Rotting of tree stumps and roots can after many years cause the timber to become brittle. If the root system was large, earth may also collapse into a hole once occupied by the roots. Care should be made to remove as much of a tree as possible, as back filling at a later date will be expensive, particularly if access is restricted.

Drainage

Tree root damage can cause drainage channels to leak and break; the escaping liquids could cause heave in clay soils or cause the erosion of the soil beneath the foundations. Erosion of the soils could cause settlement or subsidence to the main building.

Tree Maintenance

If trees are actively maintained and the growth of the canopy is limited by thinning, pruning or topping, then the moisture requirement of the tree may diminish to a safer level. Care should be taken as a number of tree varieties are susceptible to disease if they are pruned excessively; other varieties grow more rampantly if pruned. Therefore advice should be sought from a qualified expert.

Tree Preservation Orders

Any alterations to a tree covered by a Tree Preservation Order will require the permission of the local Planning Authority. Ignorance of the law relating to Tree Preservation Orders is not a defence, therefore if in doubt contact your Local Authority Planning Department. The costs and fines of damaging or removing a tree protected by a Tree Preservation Order could be punitive.

The construction of pitched roofs can vary with the age and type of the house and the regulations that covered the construction when the dwelling was built.

The construction of older roofs will generally involve a lot of very substantial timbers with big chunky joints. Roof trusses of this type were used in varying forms until timber rationing after the Second World War.

After the 1940s there were a variety of systems for building roofs, some of which involved the use of structural steel. The need to conserve timber required that the trusses used less timber but were equal in strength. Various systems were employed until the pre-formed truss was invented.

In most new build properties the main roof structure is of pre-formed trusses (gang nail trusses). This form of construction is popular because the trusses can all be manufactured using mass production techniques and are therefore more cost effective than the more labour-intensive older-style trusses. Additional benefits are that they are very strong and do not impose the same loadings on the structure below.

In older roofs the roof covering was constructed on to battens with mortar applied to the underside between the slates and the batten to stop rain and snow being blown into the roof space. The additional benefit of this mortar is that it limits the movement of the slates/tiles and therefore prolongs the life of the roof. This system allows the roof to ventilate in the normal cracks between the slates.

Later as construction developed the roofs became under-felted. This was initially a fabric covered with a bitumen compound but later evolved into the modern reinforced plastic sheeting. This is almost entirely used in new build and in resurfacing of existing roofs. The sheeting replaces the mortar back-pointing and also acts as a second line of defence against damp penetration.

Ventilation

When insulation is installed it can be stuffed or blown into the eaves of the roof. The ventilation of modern roofs is generally through the eaves and therefore the insulation can severely restrict ventilation to the roof space.

If there is inadequate ventilation an environment is created that can enable timber decay to occur. Ventilation should be maintained at all times to roof spaces.

Surfaces

The roof surfacing material will have a direct influence on the size and extent of the structure required to support it. Any change in the roofing material will have an effect on the supporting structure.

The materials used in the roof coverings are varied. By far the most common are slates, clay tiles and concrete tiles. Other roofing materials include asbestos tiles, bitumen, thatch, profiled metal sheeting and more modern composite slates.

The relative weight of the material and the required gradient will dictate the style and form of the structure above.

The materials used to provide the covering will also age and weather in differing ways. The method of securing the slates can also affect how the roof ages.

Defects

Wind Damage

Wind loadings on roofs can cause significant stresses that over time can cause the deterioration of the structure. In modern pre-formed truss roofs it is a Building Regulation requirement that diagonal wind bracing be installed. Older roofs are at risk of wind damage to structures where the additional bracing was not installed. Older-style roofs are not immune from wind damage; however, the more substantial jointing makes the roof more able to withstand high wind loadings.

If caught early the repairs can be relatively inexpensive. However, we would strongly recommend that a building surveyor be engaged to provide a specification. Alterations to roofs should only be carried out with specialised knowledge.

Roofs will deteriorate because of tiles lifting in strong winds. If missing slates or tiles are not replaced through general maintenance the wind through the roof space could hasten the deterioration of the roof and cause further damage. Typically a roof will have one slope with the wind loading the surface and the other elevation there will experience negative pressure (a lifting force). The result is that slates and tiles will work loose or more catastrophically the whole roof could be lifted off.

It is essential to keep the roof surfaces well maintained. Check the roof surfaces after gales and have good household insurance.

Roof Spread

Roof spread typically occurs if roof trusses are inadequate or if the roof has been resurfaced with a heavier tile than the roof was originally designed for.

The defect is identified by sagging of the roof surfaces and sometimes cracking and distortion of the main walls at eaves height.

The repairs can vary in cost and extent. In extreme cases the whole roof and supporting structure will require replacement. In most cases, the roof can be repaired by providing additional bracing within the roof space. Calculating the loading of a roof and recommending additional bracing is a specialised area and should be to a specification calculated by a building surveyor or structural engineer.

Nail Sickness

This defect is caused by the deterioration in the securing nails in a roof. Nails in older roofs are often only mild steel and are prone to rusting and breaking. This result is that the roof will require more frequent maintenance. As the problem with the nails worsens, the cost of repairing the roof will escalate to the extent that the roof may become beyond economic repair. At this stage the only repair is renewal of the roof covering.

Once a roof has become seriously affected by nail sickness the only appropriate method of repair is to strip and resurface the roof. When a roof requires resurfacing, care should be taken to choose a covering with a similar weight to the old roof surface. (See roof spread, above.)

A nail-sick roof will have many loose and slipping slates; many more may have been rewired into position. Our advice is to seek the advice of a qualified roofing contractor.

If your roof is in need of complete resurfacing, how about considering the installation of a roof that can supply electricity to your home?

Splitting Timbers

On the whole roof trusses are of timber and are of a softwood material. Timber can split as it dries out and seasons. In older roofs the roof timbers will have these splits and there will not be any undue effect on the structure. Problems will occur where the splitting goes through the whole of the timber and affects the structural integrity of the beam.

Where this occurs you will often note a sagging of the roof similar to roof spread but the damage will be more localised. The repair is often carried out by replacing the damaged timber or sandwiching the timber with new timbers. The new timbers will be bolted and bonded in place. This is not a DIY repair and should be carried out by either a roofing contractor or a joiner working to the specification of a building surveyor.

Rot and Woodworm

Rot and woodworm will over time affect the load bearing capacity of the roof timbers in both tension and compression as the decay reduces the effective size of the structure.

Leaking roofs and defective flashings to the roofs can cause rot and woodworm. A well maintained roof is much less at risk. Outbreaks of rot and woodworm in roof spaces will need specialist treatment to treat and prevent further outbreaks. (See timber and damp)

Weathering

The tiles and slates on any roof will deteriorate with age. How quickly this happens will depend on the location, the likelihood of frost, whether the surface is north or south facing and whether there is any vegetation (moss or ivy).

Some materials such as asbestos tiles are particularly prone to weathering. These were often used in the 1940s and 1950s and in most cases are now weathering and becoming porous. Where asbestos is the material used, the costs of removing the material can be significant and the job should only be carried out by an approved contractor with experience in this area.

Normal slates and tiles will also deteriorate by splitting, cracking or exfoliating. In most cases repairs can be carried out through routine maintenance, though in some cases a bad batch of tiles may deteriorate more rapidly and require that the roof surface be renewed. Slates or tiles of a similar weight should always be used when resurfacing roofs.

Flat Roofs

Flat felt roofs have a limited life expectancy and ongoing and accelerated maintenance should be anticipated. How many times have you seen that on a survey or valuation report?

Flat roofs are on the whole made of bitumen. This material is almost fluid when heated up by the sun in hot parts of the summer and will be rock hard in the winter. The heating and cooling of the bitumen will through time cause blisters and pleating to occur in the material. The constant movement will also stress the joints. It is inevitable that the roof will deteriorate more rapidly than other materials. The average life of a flat roof is 13 years.

If moisture does enter the cavity below the decking, then older felt roofs may not have enough ventilation to remove the moisture, and deterioration of the supporting structure can occur. If there is no vapour barrier between the accommodation and the roof cavity, condensation can occur, which can have a similar affect possibly promoting rot.

Felted roofs should not be left alone. If there are a lot of blisters, water remains on the roof for some time, the felt is old in appearance or the joints are cracking then it is nearing the time where your cheque book may have to be made ready. Fortunately in most cases the resurfacing of a felt roof is not prohibitively expensive.

Other flat roof surfaces can be of lead and copper. On the whole these surfaces are far less likely to experience the problems of felt roofs. The materials do however expand and contract and if poorly constructed and detailed then tears and splits can occur in joints, flashings or edging, which can allow leakage. The temptation to fix a defective roof by painting it with a thick coat of bitumen tar should be avoided; this is only a temporary repair at best. By far the preferable repair is renewal with a similar material; if funds are tight a bitumen felt roof could be installed.