I am not a big fan of DIY landscaping. I will do hardscaping, like retaining walls, fences, and patios. I have done some of each. When the cost outweighs my displeasure, I will do the project.
I have installed fencing at a couple of houses. In all situations I used fence panels. The panels have the fence pickets already nailed to the rails. Even though it makes the jobs easier, the panels do not work well on a sloping yard.
The greatest challenge with installing a fence is the post hole digging. I live in an area where there is a heavy clay under the topsoil. Once you get through the topsoil you hit dense, slick material. I have tried an auger style post hole digger that was older than the dirt I was trying to remove. You put this t-shaped digger on the spot and turn the handles clockwise while pressing down. The blades dig into the dirt as you rotate the handle. The digger fills with dirt and you remove it by lifting up on a release on the center post. It works well for one-foot deep holes, but that is it.
When I installed our above-ground pool, we had a problem with kids using our yard as a shortcut. We have a dead-end behind our yard. The back of the lot is filled with trees and wild vegetation. During the summer, the trees and brush creates a vision barrier. The kids from the other subdivision like to use our yard as a walkway to our subdivision and vice-versa. They created a beaten down path through the trees to walk through. It was annoying when you were in the backyard and in the pool and having kids walk by and gawk at us. I put in a 2-foot high wire fence by the path to stop them from cutting through our yard. Our neighbor was upset the kids would get hurt and pulled it out. After a heated discussion, I told her I was putting it back up and the kids could go through her yard, (and they did.) The kids were now using my neighbor’s yard, but their presence still was bothersome. Robert Frost penned, “Good fences make good neighbors.” In our case, good fences make good privacy. We decided to install a six-foot privacy fence. There would be no gaps between the pickets. We would create a solid screen between us and the passer-byers (and the neighbors).
With a six-foot fence, you need to put the fence posts in the ground at least three feet. Knowing that I needed more power to dig through the clay, I rented a gas-powered two-man post hole digger. With the help of my wife, Efiwym, and my son, Nosym, we attempted to dig 10 holes. The first few holes near the house went well. I attribute that success with loose soil that was disturbed when the house was built three years ago. As we moved to post holes away from the house, the digging got more difficult.
As Nosym and I bore down on the post hole digger to help the machine cut through the clay, we slowly exhausted our energy. Efiwym would tag off with each of us to help with the hole digging. I had some crazy idea to add water to the hole to “loosen up” the soil. The clay is slick and oily. Adding water just made it slicker and oilier. We struggled to get the holes deeper than two feet. We would stop on one hole and go to another to give us a break from the defeat.
We now had 10 holes of varying depths. We would go back to a hole and try to again to get the hole deeper. Our energy was sapped as we struggled to lift up the digger to remove small amounts of dirt. After several hours, I called it quits. Knowing that two feet would not cut it, I had no choice but to settle.
(Even though the pool is gone, and the kids barely use the neighbor’s yard as a walkway, we still have the fence. Every spring after the frost is out of the soil, I would straighten out the posts. While pushing on the post, I would pound large wooden wedges into the ground next to the post. There now might be four layers of wood stakes stacked against the posts. I need to replace a post, as it is cracked at the ground level.)
Once the holes were dug, I put the ten-foot cedar posts into the holes. I did not fill in the holes yet. I needed to first attach the panels. The width of the hole allowed for some room to move the post so it could be attached to the panel. I had to widen some of the holes as my measurements or the digging of the hole was off.
The pressure treated panels were eight feet wide and six feet high. The pickets were 6 inches wide, attached to the rails, and tightly to each other. There was a Gothic top design, otherwise the pickets created a solid field of wood. I purchased galvanized brackets and screws to mount the panels to the posts. Even though the pickets were nailed to the rails, I put two additional screws into the pickets for both the top and bottom rails.
The back yard is elevated in the back and slopes down about 3 feet. Fixed panels do not work well for sloping yards. In retrospect, I should have dismantled one or two panels. I could have slanted the rails and stepped the pickets to account for the slope. But I did not. There were gaps under a couple of panels. Two posts had to be at least seven and a half feet tall. Not the best scenario for posts only two feet in the ground.
Once the panels were in place, I set the post in the topsoil/clay material. I decided that setting posts in concrete would be worthless. Concrete alone could not hold off gusts of winds that would blow into the tall fence panels like sails on a boat. With the northerly winter winds, the fence posts would move in the soil. In the spring, I would do my annual straightening.
I built a gate from the remains of the shortened fence panel by the house. The panel and gate pickets were stepped to create a decorative concave edge. I believe I made a strong gate with the appropriate cross bracing.
Since the gate was over five feet high at the latch side, you could not easily reach over the gate to open it. The solution was installing a chain to the latch release and run it through a hole in the post. You could now pull on the chain to unlatch the door. The downside was the chain would sometimes fall back through the hole. I would then need to re-thread the chain back through the hole. After this happened multiple times, I added a screw and nut to the end of the chain so the chain could not fall out.
Building a strong gate that will not sag is important but attaching it to a rigid post is vital. Because I did not set the posts in concrete, the post would move from the frost and wind. Now I would have a gate that would not close or latch. I would straighten the post, and all would be good. But the opening and closing of the gate caused the most movement of the post. After several years of constant adjusting, I cracked the post.
This time I was going to do this right. I purchased a new post. I removed the old post and widened out the hole. This hole was actually three feet deep, so I did not dig it any deeper. I installed the gate to the post to make sure I had the proper setup. With the gate latched and the post plumb, I poured in dry quick drying cement into the hole. I added water to the hole. I would wait until tomorrow.
The next day I checked on the status of my pour. Something happened overnight. After I opened the gate, I could not close it. The gate hit the post when you tried to close it. The post was rigid, and I did not want to push on it and possibly crack the concrete. I did push on the latch side post and you guessed it, I broke it. I broke another post.
So back to the home improvement store, I returned with a 4 x 4 pressure-treated post. With a pickax, I removed the old post and slid in the new post. With the new post I pushed the post back and forth to open the hole more. I closed the gate to check for spacing and put a level on the post to make sure it was plumb. Confident the post was in the right position, I kicked dirt into the hole around the post. With the rounded top of the shovel handle, I compacted the soil while checking the spacing and level. Once most of the dirt was in place, I checked the swing of the gate. The post still was not rigid, so I continued to add and compact the soil around the post. I added water, added more soil, and compacted it down. The post was rigid. I then screwed the latch on the post and drilled the hole for the latch chain. Once in place, I gave the opened gate a swing. Just like it should, the gate closed and latched unabated.
I cut the tops of the post to the proper height, I screwed down the post topper.
A couple years later the concrete around the gate post cracked. The post now would move freely. I pounded on the concrete to tighten up the post. Soon I will need to remove the concrete pieces and start over again. I hate landscaping!