Wattle fences and Autumn chores

So, What's quackin?

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 Well, since finishing the "book",  little ducklings have grown to full-size stunners!

Big puppies had the "operation".

Here they are smiling, BEFORE the operation, ( little did they know). We are lucky to have a James Herriot vet, he  makes house calls! So the boys never had to leave home for the surgery.

Morning Glory madness has occurred... as usual.

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And I had a bit of fun in my poor neglected  side garden.

   It was calling for some serious weeding and cleanup. September is a perfect time to tie up loose ends in the garden and maybe do a few quick projects that were avoided in the heat of summer.

My project is the area around the pergola James built last year. I've been slowly creating a garden around it and upon the slope in the foreground.

 There are many little paths meandering hither and thither, beneath and around this pergola garden. Don't you love pathways?

 I tidied these up a bit. We use pebbles, old brick, stone and pine needles to make walkways.

I love letting my chickens free range, that's my point in having chickens; to watch their antics throughout the day. It is delightful to watch them frolicking in the grass and perching on the arbors exhibiting kooky behavior, typical of this zany bird. BUT chickens in the gardens can create havoc  in 2 seconds flat. Those claws are lethal digging tools!

So, I had a plan to protect my slope garden from those feathered marauders;

 I decided to make wattle garden fencing.

 

 The biggest job in building wattles is collecting the wood. Any green wood will do, but willow is best and locust is even better, thorns removed, of course. I gathered both. Who knew those horrid Locust trees would become my best buddies?! Try to collect the most long lasting "whips" you can find, you don't want to go to all this work, only have your fence rot out in a year. 

 This bunch will only get me about 6 feet in length and 1 foot tall. I will need to collect a lot more.

  I have built some rather tall Wattle Hurdles in the past, but this will be a short and charming fence to wrap around this little garden. My chickens won't challenge even a short garden fence, as long as I extend the top of fencing with a bit of goat wire.

I used 24" rusty re-bar for my horizontal posts. Of course, this was not used traditionally, but I like to use it because it will not rot, and actually looks like wood. I hammered the posts into the earth, 1 foot apart, surrounding the garden area.

 Just strip off the leaves and excess twigs from your collected green wood. I like to leave a few side twigs for interest and thickness. Sometimes, I will even "braid" the thinner twigs together. The fun part is weaving your twigs and branches in and out ,it's like making a basket. On the fence above, which is about 3 feet tall, I used green fence posts as the uprights.

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 I butted this taller fence up against the pergola posts to encourage a climbing rose that needs a head start next year. By the way, now is a great time to purchase leftover perennials from the nursery. This barrow-full of plants cost $1 a pot!

  The taller wattle fence connects to the short garden wattle fence. A dry creek runs beneath one side of this pergola and the hypertufa houses are lined along the shore.

 I planted moss, creeping jenny, creeping fig, and, ground cover sedum along this bank. Next year these plants will really fill in the bare spots.

 

 I nearly made it all the way around the garden with my wattle....

 but then I ran out of willow and locust, shucks! 

 I will have to finish the fence next spring, when new "whips"grow out of the decimated locust tree stumps... and they will; by the dozens! I'll work on filling in stones for the remainder of the dry creek over the winter months and plant more ground cover along wattle fence line.

Obviously, this is still a work in progress.

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 These fences are very rustic and charming for the country garden. The stone steps going up the slope were from the salvage yard. They were once foundation stones in a downtown building from the 1920's. I laid these steps in February; you can do landscaping all year round.

 Next year, my friend Sharyn and I are simultaneously building wattle fences. Her's in Washington state, Mine in Tennessee. These will be full size fences, I hope. So those trees better get a growing, I will need a lot of whips!

Give this a try in your garden. My next project will be the making of various  hypertufa containers, which will have the entire winter to cure. I will post on that soon.