This post is about creating useful fencerows that serve many purposes:
- security, keeping unwanted creatures and zombies out
- safety, keeping livestock, pets, and children in and off the road
- food, producing fruits and nuts
- beauty, getting great joy from what you have created, and even getting compliments from neighbors
- windbreaks, slowing that howling winter wind
- habitat, creating places for wildlife, pollinators, and beneficial insects
It is completely fenced and cross-fenced now. We've done all of the work as a middle aged couple. If we can do it, you can do it. I'm planting things on our fences to make them difficult to climb, and also pretty, and even the fence rows produce! Pretty? Yes, I am a gardener and who wants ugly if you can have pretty AND useful?
We have climbing roses chosen for repeat blooming, disease hardiness, winter hardiness, thorniness, AND really good hip production. I chose varieties from the Canadian Explorer series for many of the roses and have had excellent luck with them in our midwestern USA location. Rose hips are not widely utilized, but ought to be. We will never, ever lack for Vitamin C. These cover the fence along the road, across the entire front of our property. People stop me in town to tell me how beautiful they are. The roses create an incredibly beautiful show, yet they are also a formidable defensive barrier against zombies. They also keep even our daughter's jumping crazy dog IN our yard - this dog can easily clear a 6 foot fence, but you add thorny roses that go on up another couple feet, and even our jumping champ cannot escape - she remains safely in the yard, so she isn't out on the road.
I have also planted maypops (hardy Passion flowers) along another fence, for their beautiful flowers and fruits. Yes, you can grow passion fruits in the Midwest.
The maypops are near a trumpet vine. The trumpet vine provides a dense vine that provides a profusion of blooms, attracting hummingbirds and pollinators. Then I have a section covered in sweet autumn clematis. These clematis draw in bees like few other plants can - they are amazing at feeding many species of bees, from the honeybee to our many species of native bees and wasps. And, of course, bees are needed for fruit. These are a backdrop to our orchard of cherry, Apple, and mulberry trees. I like mulberries ok, but they are not my favorite fruits. We eat some, but many go to feed our chickens, whose run is right under one of the mulberry trees. One thing I like about the mulberry is its fast growth. I planted one seedling coming up on 4 years ago, and it already shades the chicken yard and provides a fair amount of fruit. In the coming years, I expect it will be a BIG producer like the one behind our house when I was a child. I liked it so well that I planted a second seedling 2 years ago, and it is already nearly 8 feet tall.
I have a thicket of everbearing raspberries along another fence. I love these as they give us two crops per year. The first crop is early, on last year's canes. The second crop is later in the season, on this year's canes. They have spread, creating a nice, thorny and fruitful barrier.
Along another fence I planted highbush cranberries and elderberries. Both are BIG shrubs at maturity, and both produce useful fruits. Elderberry jam is heaven sent. And, of course, elderberry is also an amazing herb with many uses, including treating the flu.
I have a hedge of old fashioned lilacs. They are another beauty, but also have other purposes - herbal and, a fast growing windbreak. They will eventually be huge. Already they are taller than me. This spring's show has been spectacular.
Another stretch of fence has blueberries. They were just planted, so it will be awhile before they come into production. They are an amazing superfood, and they are pretty, with flowers, lovely green foliafge, and then a nice pop of color in the fall.
I have planted a number of Eastern redcedars, planted from native seedlings. The wild birds love the berries and poop out seeds in little fertilized packets while they sit on the electric line along our road. This means hundreds of "free" tree seedlings every spring under the power line. I dig them up, grow them out in pots for a year, and transplant once big enough not to step on. They grow fast and provide shelter and winter food for many birds, including the Eastern bluebird, cedar waxwing, and other favorites. They also provide a windbreak in winter.
Another fence has hawthorns, at the entry to our pecan orchard.
And then we have, interspersed, things planted just for variety, such as forsythia, arborvitae, rhododendrons, hydrangeas, etc.
When planting in a pasture, it is a good idea to protect young plantings with an electric fence (hot wire, as we rednecks call them). Solar powered fence chargers are more affordable now and work exceedingly well. Even in places where there is no readily accessible electric power, you can still install an electric fence. They are also handy to move if you need to later.
Also, when planting along a pasture fence, always consider whether a plant will be greedily consumed by the critters. And, remember to check for toxicity. It is one thing to knowingly plant a food source and protect it while young, knowing that at maturity it can provide livestock with emergency food (black willow trees, for example), but another thing to think you could fence in goats with roses (goats LOVE eating roses). So plant things in their appropriate places, and do your research before getting the plants.
Some of our fences have all but disappeared. And, that's the idea. They are still there, acting as a trellis, and a backup barrier. But the living plants take over.
Fencerows are a good way to make multipurpose use of the edges of your property, adding security, food, and beauty to places that might otherwise be underutilized space.
