Geoff Duncan

Fence lumber piling up

One result of last autumn's Great Retaining Wall adventure was that sections of the old back yard fence were been hanging around all winter, waiting for an opportunity (and good weather) to put up new fencing. As we were dismantling the old fence, I was surprised at how much of the 20 or 30 year-old wood was in good shape. Sure, a few bits toward the ground had rotted out, there were some chips and splinters, and the twig-like trellising across the top of some sections was a loss, but for the most part the material had held up surprisingly well in the elements. You were never going to use it to, say, repair a home, but it I reasoned it ought to be able to keep serving in outdoor-ish capacities, like planters, landscaping, and maybe the occasional bit of fence and gate repair.

One of my idle projects has been disassembling the old fence sections, pulling all the metal out of them, discarding rotted or badly split chunks, then setting them in a sheltered spot to dry out a bit. My thought was to build some new planters: maybe some small ones for herbs or annuals, and at least one large, sturdier one to replace a badly dilapidated wooden tub that was (just barely) holding up a small cherry tree out back. And—not-so-secretly—I want to build a small bat house. I think bats are cool—and they'd probably discourage some of the local wasps.

The new cherry planter

Last week the sun came out and I had a few hours, so I grabbed some tools, a tape measure, and some nails, hauled some former fencing out to the patio, and improvised a new planter for that cherry tree. Given a stiff breeze, the tub that had been holding up that cherry tree was going to fall apart, so it was time to give the cherry a new home. Ironically, I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to lift the small tree into the new planter once it was constructed—turned out, lifting the tree was easy. It's just that the previous planter completely collapsed as soon as I touched it, so I had a lot of soil (and earthworms!) to scoop and transfer to the new box.

And the new box seems to be a hit: it's not an aesthetic masterpiece, but for the work of a couple hours, some eyeballing, some loose pencil marks, some sawing and hammering, I'll wager it'll hold together a few years. The base (which isn't visible at all in the photo) is remarkably solid, and didn't even squeak with my jumping up and down on top of it to see if it was going to fly apart. The rest of the planter uses comparatively few nails (several pieces are held together with shims and wedges), and parts are designed to be easily maintained one piece at a time—unlike the previous tub, which was a fully interdependent, all-or-nothing proposition.

In the meantime, the yard is springing back to life: the poppies are starting to pop, the wild roses are having a mad time, and (grr!) the lemon balm seems happier than ever. Sadly, the fig tree seems to have had a hard winter" it's coming back, but it's not very happy about the situation. Hopefully, it'll fully recover.