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Fences Build Good Neighbors - Part 1

© Georgene Bramlage

"Good fences make good neighbors," writes poet Robert Frost in Mending Wall. And why do fences make good neighbors? A properly constructed fence in a well thought out location provides privacy and a sense of security for the homeowner. Two examples that usually come to mind for most of us are fences between a street and front yard, and ones separating neighbors' properties. One of my favorite cartoons illustrates this model. Two women stand in front of houses in a mid-twentieth century housing development that has no fences of any kind; neighbors share what appears to be one gigantic front yard. The area is large and open, planted with only a few, almost identical looking trees and shrubs. One woman says to the other, "You can see my problem; there's no mystery."

Fences can also impart a definition, a boundary, between two portions of a garden. We used a four-foot-high spilt rail fence to separate the level, maintained area of our backyard from a woody slope that bordered it, which we did not care to keep up. John Barden, a friend and horticulturist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, contributed this idea when he visited one afternoon. We joking talked about the hillside woods marching in and taking over our activity area. "Plant forsythia behind the fence and let that fight it out with whatever grows up the hill," he semi-jokingly replied.

Now we have forsythia behind the fence, with spring-flowering bulbs and summer shade-loving perennials and annuals in front of the fence. And it works well. We maintain the forsythia, the fence and flower bed in front. Because it all is so colorful, our eyes stop at the fence and we ignore the rampant growth in the woods until we really want to explore what's growing there.

Early colonists in North America brought with them the concept that fences were important in defining personal spaces, as well as for keeping animals away from dwellings. In some areas such as Colonial Williamsburg fences were the law as early as 1631 and one of the first undertakings for a homeowner.

In early 19th Century design, Andrew Jackson Downing(1815-1852), American garden architect, advocated naturalistic landscaping and had a great democratic desire to create places that could be used by all classes of society.

Downing's colleagues and disciples like Calvert Vaux (1815-1852) and Frederick Law Olmstead (1822-1903) passed along and enlarged upon his ideas after the War Between the States (1861-1865). Although Olmstead made his mark as "The Father of American Landscape Architecture" by planning and designing large spaces such as New York's Central Park and Boston's Arnold Arboretum, his travels between the United States and Europe reinforced and supported his philosophical requirements to avoid formality and seek democracy in his designs.

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