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Larch lap fencing is used by developers everywhere as the universal fencing material. It is generally assumed that everyone wants as much privacy as possible (a correct assumption but solid fencing would not win any international design awards, & there are better ways to ensure privacy than a solid barrier.). A 1.8m or 6ft wooden panel fence is the easiest & cheapest (nastiest) fencing unit that is within the planning restrictions that apply to boundaries.
The problem is, in my book, that it falls just short of the hateful leylandii conifer hedge as the most hateful thing in the gardening pantheon. They usually appear round brand new gardens in a lurid semi-brown/orange colour & like our contributor at the top of the page has found out, they dominate the garden to such an extent that virtually anything you plant appears as ‘that thing in front of the fence’! There must be a better way. So, what are the options…? 1. Painting – You can now buy many different paints for woodwork in the garden. Whether it is blue, purple, red, green or orange, the chances are that someone has seen a gap in the market & produced a fence paint of your chosen hue. Most good DIY stores & garden centres stock a pretty good selection. When choosing your colours remember that they have a job to do in the garden & regardless of your opinion those colours will do the job Colour Theory has decreed for them. As with plants, darker colours fade back from your viewpoint whereas lighter or more bold colours leap forward to grab your attention. This also means that the plants in front of the fence need to be complementary to the fence colour. Bizarrely, because many people will find it garish, a dark shade of orange will complement many gardens because it goes very well with green, which is the dominant colour in all gardens. (A fact that the paint companies have yet to realise as blue is the most popular garden paint available, in various shades. This seems to me to be led by the ‘Ground Force Effect’ that dictates that fashion in the garden follows whatever Messers Titchmash, Dimmock, & Walsh do, regardless of taste or aesthetic quality.) (Another small aside; my computer is currently telling me that I should replace ‘Dimmock’ with ‘gimmick’….) If your garden is a ‘box’ of Larch Lap fencing, think about painting one side a light colour & the opposite side a darker complementary shade. This will cause the viewed perspective in your garden to ‘bend’, making the box effect decrease. 2. Covering Up – Texture is one of the qualities that many people find hard to like about lapped fencing, & disguising that is not as difficult as you might think. The first alternative is trellis. Most trellis is stuck on top of fence panels to add extra height, but it can really do a good job in hiding your Larch Lap if done properly. First paint your panel a dark, neutral colour, then mount a panel of trellis of the same dimensions as your fence panel in front, securing it with screws to the rails of the panel. This trellis can either be painted the same colour as the fence, or a lighter shade. The pattern of the trellis (either diamond or square) then dominates the panel & the lapped effect ‘disappears’. Beware of painting your trellis a darker colour than tour fence as that will make the fence ‘come through’ the trellis destroying the effect. The second method is more involved but creates an illusion of wall rather than fence. Cut & fix sheets of marine or exterior grade plywood across your panels so they meet at the post centres. Fix 1ft wide strips of ply over the joins to resemble buttresses. Seal the whole job with two washes of 1 part PVA adhesive to 2 parts water, particularly the edges. Finish with textured masonry paint & your fence has become a rendered wall. Check carefully how strong your fence posts are because this adds some considerable weight to a 6ft fence. Some developers & fencing contractors skimp on the length of fence posts, as it is one of the last jobs & somewhere that last minute savings can be made. Most are pretty good though. 3. Plants – An easy route to take but one that can spell disaster if the wrong plants are chosen. The most common mistake made is to plant something that will spread quickly to cover the fence. The net result of this is to plant a voracious climber (typically the Russian Vine or Mile-a-Minute plant) or tree (my beloved leylandii conifer again) that will wreck your fence or take relations with your neighbour to 1960’s Cold War levels. The best course is to use a plant with good architectural qualities or flowering characteristics to take the eye from the fence. Strong shapes such as Cordyline australis (New Zealand Flax) or Phormium tenax mean y that you look at the plant & not the fence, whereas the excellent Garrya elliptica can be trained on wires & grown against a north facing fence. It flowers in January & is evergreen, covering that terrible larch lap all year round. |
