FRIENDLY FENCES
Has Trump thought about using plants?
Thinking about fences or walls for a garden used to be pleasant. Then Donald Trump twisted the idea of a wall into something dark and oozy.
Now walls and fences are red flag words. The notion of an idyllic walled garden sparks thoughts of menacing barriers.
Has Trump thought about using plants to form a fearsome wall? Thorny plants are unwelcoming. Strolling through a mass of roses, firethorn, cactus or agave, mixed with irritating plants like poison ivy, giant hogweed and stinging nettles could have a discouraging effect on trespassers.
But walls and fences only on duty in the garden are more pleasant to think about than a wedge wall driven between Mexico and the United States.
It’s a fact that even in the garden, walls and fences have a prickly side. They cause disputes between neighbours when they fall down, or encroach on property where they shouldn’t.
That’s why there’s a role for fence viewers. The City of Hamilton and many municipalities hire them to help resolve disputes between adjoining property owners. Compensation is $90 for each viewing.
The bylaw regulating residential fences in Hamilton is a meaty document crafted in 2010. If your fence is higher than 2.0 metres, you are busted. Make it out of sheet or corrugated metal and you are not complying. Thinking of barbwire? It’s banned.
You don’t have to travel far in the city to see infractions in height, location or material. Most of us look the other way. But in the days when I volunteered to judge Trillium Awards, someone on the team always carried a measuring tape to disqualify the mathematically challenged.
We use fences and walls in the garden for enclosure and exclusion. We want to see our pretty plants, but don’t want to view the nearby building covered in graffiti.
In my days viewing gardens, I have seen some fine fences. Chef Michael Stadtländer fenced his property up near Creemore with chain link woven through empty wine bottles.
The late Henry Kock, horticulturist at the University of Guelph, made a fence for his own garden by weaving the sturdy stems of compass plant into a rustic barrier.
Old shutters lashed together make an interesting if not the sturdiest fence, and at a garden exposition in France stacks of wooden crates used to ship vegetables were piled four high to make a quick privacy wall.
The Royal Botanical Gardens used to maintain a big hedge collection, with walllike rows of yews, beech and cedars. They were as tidy as a steeplechase course. It was a noble idea discontinued after failed attempts to keep hungry deer away.
Nothing was prettier at the RBG than the espalier fences in bloom in the spring. Bright pink blossoms from apple and cherry trees lined the long horizontal branches of the espalier. Too bad this method of fencing is rarely used here.
A pristine, white picket fence strikes a poetic note in the garden; in contrast, narrow slats used as screens or fences nudge the garden towards modernity.
Bamboo fencing frames the Japanese garden at the University of Guelph, and provides a calm backdrop for Japanese maples. A simple wooden fence, so easily ignored, is transformed with a billowy cascade of clematis or climbing hydrangea.
In Joe Eck’s thoughtful book, “Elements of Garden Design,” he writes about the need for fences and walls in our gardens.
“We seem to crave a little world of our own, set off from the greater world we inhabit and from which we often feel the need to retreat.”
We can count ourselves lucky if our thoughts about walls and fences are confined to the garden. In other places, a wall is a weapon.