Having a border dispute?

Posted on: 27 February 2017

If you are considering creating a sustainable garden in your backyard, then you may also be considering irrigation and fence placement. You may be looking at the different style of fencing for your project based on the benefits it will bring to your garden and the livelihood of that garden. One of the options you may have come across is a slatted fence. Before you overlook this option, there are several benefits that a slatted fence can bring to you. Here are three of those benefits.

Vertical Gardening

One of the things that you may have overlooked is the ability to use your fencing for gardening beyond just a running vine holder. In fact, if you go with a slatted horizontal fencing, you can stagger the slats to create a hanger for vertical gardening boxes and baskets. The slatted fencing will also allow rainwater to flow slowly down the slats, staggering to each slat and allowing the water to be absorbed into your garden. This can be very beneficial for the health of your garden, but also in giving you more space to use to create the garden you need for your family.

Irrigation Benefits

There are several configurations you can use with a slatted fence. One of the most popular are staggered slatted planks. These can be staggered horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. What this does for irrigation is simple. Instead of water flowing straight down the fence line to the ground and pooling, because the ground may not be able to absorb the water quick enough, the slats actually catch and hold the water for a very short time. This makes the water flow slower and move in more of a drip like formation down the fencing rather than a steady stream. The drips work as a drip irrigation into the ground, allowing the ground time to absorb the water rather than causing a washout that feeds into your landscape and garden.

Combined Benefits

One way that you can combine the vertical gardening benefit and the irrigation benefits is to use the fencing around the property as well as within the garden rows themselves. You can have the fencing placed in rows in the staggered slatted formation. You can then use both sides of the fencing on each row as a vertical garden, with a regular garden row on either side underneath. Effectively you are getting two rows from the ground and the vertical square footage on both sides of the fence moving up. You can do this with each row of your garden. This could effectively give you the ability to have four or more double sided fencing walls for gardening, built in irrigation for drip irrigation to the plants below and the vertical gardening on the three fence walls surrounding the area.

With these benefits of slatted fences you are increasing your irrigation possibilities, decreasing the chance of flooding, and increasing your food productivity. For more ideas, contact your fencing contractor for pricing and options.