Home Home Improvement Fence or Hedge? Each has advantages

Fence or Hedge? Each has advantages

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Are you considering a hedge if you’re in need of a fence? When managed properly, hedges cost less, outlast wooden/concrete fences, are more attractive than most walls. And it produces wildlife- and pollinator-pleasing berries and blooms.

Moreover, as the kids get bigger and the whole neighbourhood seems to get noisier, it would be nice to have more privacy, to entertain or just relax. And future neighbours might not be as friendly or obliging as the ones you have now. Both a fence and a hedge can add to your privacy, but there are a number of pros and cons to consider for each one.

Related: A Fence Is The Face Of Your Home

A Privacy Fence

PROS:

A fence is a permanent improvement and needs little or no care after it’s installed. Unless you want the classic wood fence, which will need painting every year or so. There are lots of fence materials like a chain link, treated wood/ ‘mabati‘ and concrete that last 10 to 20 years without any maintenance. No watering, fertilizing or trimming. A fence lets a busy homeowner do other things with their time.

The price per foot is clear from the outset, and professionals can install an average yard fence in a couple of days. You can save money by doing the installation yourself. Though, it may be worth the extra cost to get the job done professionally and promptly.

A fence gives your property a neat, trim look and can fit into a narrower space than a hedge. It works best when houses are close together or you need to follow a path to the back door. A fence also won’t extend into a neighbour’s yard the way a hedge would if placed on the property line.

CONS:

Good fencing can be expensive. One home-improvement service that calculates the average costs of wood, ‘mabati‘ and chain-link fencing, costs vary depending on material and quality.

Installation costs can add between approximately Kes 5,000 and Kes 15,000 per foot. Unless the ground is level and free of rocks, digging holes for posts can turn into a big and expensive job. Tailoring a fence to a slope adds more challenges and possibly more cost.

Depending on where you live, putting up a fence may require a building permit. Local codes may severely limit the height and sometimes dictate materials you can use. Chain link or post-and-rail may be prohibited in front or back yards. 

Your area may require a written agreement between neighbours before a fence can go up between them; conversely, there may be no recourse if your neighbour puts up a fence that wrecks your view or adds shade to your flower beds. It’s important to find out the regs in your community before deciding about building a fence.

Related: What to Know Before Installing a New Fence

A Privacy Hedge

Pros:

A hedge can add real beauty as well as definition to your landscape. Choose an evergreen like arborvitae at you can shear into a formal shape or a bushy one that creates a thick green wall between you and the rest of the world.

A perennial bloomer like rose-of-sharon or lilac loses its leaves in the fall but pays you back for a quiet winter with fresh green spring foliage and an abundance of beautiful flowers. 

A deciduous hedge gives your yard a different look with every season.  Planting a service-berry hedge draws birds and pollinators to your yard.

Hedges can reduce noise and dust pollution, filling your yard with cleaner, more breathable air. Like trees, hedging can provide dense shade, cooling areas that make your yard uncomfortable and raise your energy costs.

Planting a hedge freshens your particular patch of the outdoors.

A hedge is a fence that grows, so you can save money on both plants and the labour needed to plant them by starting small and letting time work its magic.

Ask lots of questions about the mature size of the plants you like. Some, like juniper, cypress and yew, come in a wide range of colours, textures, shapes and mature sizes, so it’s important to know just how the variety you prefer will behave. Ask about growth rate, too. With a little extra care, you can nurture smaller shrubs into a big, beautiful hedge while saving a lot of money.

In a yard with large outcroppings or rock or slopes and bumps, digging holes for hedge plants may be a far less elaborate undertaking than trying to anchor fence posts. Creating curves in a line is much easier with plants than with rigid building materials.

CONS:

A hedge needs tending from planting through to maturity. Transplant shock can result in plants that turn brown and die or just fail to grow as well as others. Good soil preparation means a lot of digging, as does the planting.

New hedge plants need steady water, and growing plants need fertilizer, weeding and sometimes disease protection. Removing dead leaves, checking for insects and removing damaged branches are regular seasonal chores needed to make your new or old hedge look good.

Even inexpensive hedges aren’t always inexpensive. Bargain catalogue plants may be much smaller than described, and condition may be questionable. 

Local nursery plants can run from Kes 20 to Kes 1,000 apiece, depending on variety and size. You’ll need tools and supplies to take care of your hedge plants as well.

Although hedges may not be subject to the same local codes as fences, check thoroughly before making final choices. Knowing how wide your plants will spread as they grow can be critical information in the face of local rules about setbacks from the property line. Your favourite shrub may not pass muster with local rules about pedestrian and driver visibility.

When you plant a hedge, sometimes the price of success can be as high as the price of failure. Healthy growth can get out of control when conditions are right, and your hedge may respond poorly to severe pruning.  Keeping pace with growth can mean frequent expenditures of time, labour and/or money to keep your hedge quite literally in trim.

The Conclusion:

There’s an old saying that good fences make good neighbours. Sometimes those fences are better made from living material. Setting boundaries can be challenging, but choosing a material both you and your neighbours regard as a good-looking property improvement makes drawing the line easier. Paint or plant? Pound or dig? There are lots of handsome ways to solve the problem.

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