best way to put up screening against a fence

I want to put up some screening, the screening is 3m x 2m but the fence is only 5 feet high, do I fasten it to the fence using ties or am I better putting it up some other way, may be buy some wooden posts or something, what are your thoughts? I also plan to put this reed screening up against another 6 ft high fence in my garden.

Keith

 

Is this the chain link fence in your front garden or a wooden one?

 

They are both wooden fences lol

Keith

 

I would say the answer depends on what the screening is made of.
If its even remotely pliable it will need a "frame" to support it at the top. If you don't the is the possibility it will collapse either under its own weight or more likely, wind.

 

As has been said, a lot depends on what type of reed screening you're planning to use - since I've seen reed screening which varies from something quite substantial to much cheaper stuff which is really quite 'floppy'.

I think I'm right in saying that in the first of the current new series of 'Love Your Garden', Alan Titchmarsh fixed up some, just using staples. Some of the websites which sell screening, recommend fixing it to an existing fence by using lengths of galvanised wire, cable ties, screws or nails.

When we fixed up some reed screening, (many moons ago), I recall Mr. F'smum used fairly small screw-eyes (screwed into the existing fence's horizontal supports) - which just protruded through the screening and we then ran fine galvanised wire along the front of the screening, threading it through the screw-eyes as we came to them and 'tensioning' it off at the end. Of course, it was our fence we were screwing the eyes into, so we didn't have to ask permission from anyone else.

Before you put the screening in front of the shorter of your two fences, (i.e. the 5' high one), I think I'd recommend unrolling it and attaching two horizontal 'battens' to the back of it, one about 20cm down from the top, and another mid-way between that point and the top of the existing fence.

The thing is, whatever you decide to use, you're still going to have roughly 1m of 'exposed' screening above the level of the existing fence (i.e. the difference between 5' and 2m.), and so far as I can see, that could create quite a bit of wind-resistence so it might be worth considering making a completely separate frame for the screening by driving in some substanial posts just in front of the existing fence and attaching your screening to that - especially if this shorter fence belongs to a neighbour since you don't want your screening bringing down his/her fence.

 

Ok thank you, my local garden centres sells wooden 8 ft stakes, I thought about buying 3 of these per 3 metres of screening, knocking them into the lawn on my side of the fence as the fence is not mine, leaving around 6 feet for me to fasten it to, leaveing just over 2 feet with no support, I think it would be better do you?

Keith

 

Hi Keith

You could put stakes in, then put trellis up and attach the screening to that? If you fasten the screening behind the trellis then you could plant a fast growing climber to cover it and look pretty