Creating a Lush Hassle-Free Garden: Our Four-Year Journey

Gardening behind a fence offers a unique blend of protection and challenge. While fences can shield plants from animals and create a defined space for growth, they also bring their own set of hurdles. From pest control to soil quality, obstacles we faces. This post explores our challenges of a fenced garden, shares successful strategies and redirection and offers real-life stories.

It involved an 8-foot fence, a beautifully contained garden, and-most importantly- no weeding. Ever.

The "Perfect garden"

When I began planning my garden, this was the image I had in mind. Perfect pathways. Perfect shrubs. Perfect symmetry. and me gracefully strolling through paradise as if I actually knew what I was doing.

Not a weed in sight.

Then came the weeds,, the heat, the insects, the drought, and several gardening decisions that seemed brilliant at the time.

Looking back, I now suspect this garden employs a staff of twelve, three landscape architects, and perhaps a magician.

Nevertheless, this was my vision..

Deer have a long history of helping themselves to the menu and were undoubtedly plotting their next move.

beautiful...yes, hungry...yes

So, we installed a fence, undergirded with a weed barrier, (a thick bladder that builders use to water-proof the foundation on a house, because we were thinking ahead), topped it with mulch to keep everything neat, tidy and a blissfully low-maintenance, no weed eating around the fence....and then we sat back, confident we had outsmarted nature.

As I would discover, nature had it's own ideas.