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!

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.