Fence Panels - The Nightmare continues!

Don't mention fence panels to me.

How many people have been emailing and calling to get quotes and lead times on putting up fence panels! Its a shame I have no good news for them - or any of my existing customers either.

My fence nightmare began about 5 weeks ago. I did the deadly sin of taking down the old fence and trashing it, before actually getting the new panels on site...well its never been a problem before and I did have them reserved at the supplier....or so I was told.

When I turned up at the supplier, my normal contact wasn't in as he was on holiday. This is how my order got sold to somebody else...!!

This really put me in a good mood. I then spent 2 hours on the phone trying to find some more - but the answer was the same from all local (and a few distant ones too) "No chance - 4 to 5 weeks minimum"

So I then spent the day building a temporary fence to stop the kids escaping and everybody else looking in.

Well my delivery finally arrived so I dropped everything to get the fence up. It was going pretty well, apart from the pouring rain.

Then it happened. I was just removing the last bit of concrete with a lump hammer and bolster to allow the panel to sit perfectly when, due to slippery wet tools, the hammer glanced off the bolster and smacked my hand with full force.

The boys thought my jumping about and screaming was highly amusing, but I was in agony. My hand swelled up so quickly I couldn't get my glove off. Those of you who have done this will know what it feels like and the waves of nausea that go with it.

Well we managed to finish the fence with the last panel fitted by street light. Then off to casualty to get my hand looked at. By now it had gone a funny colour, but I guessed nothing was broken as I could move fingers etc. After a quick X-Ray I got the all clear, but was told to rest it for a few days - yea right!

You get no chance of that in this job....business as usual I'm afraid.

So to all people out there looking for fence panels is 4 - 5 weeks from order is the standard lead time - don't be tempted by getting some very nasty inferior quality panels kicking about at the moment. It simply is worth it as they are rubbish.

Are you selling your house? If so read on...

One of our really popular services is garden makeovers.

This is particularly useful for people who are selling or letting a property.

This week I was called to a property in Newbury which has been on the market for some time. Inside it was really well decorated and it is situated in a tiny cul de sac near town. Despite this, the owners had over 30 viewings and only one mental offer, well below the value.

So we agreed to come in and "do a blitz". This involves a radical front to back clearance of weeds, cutting grass, cutting hedges and pruning trees and shrubs. In this case it also involved removing the dreaded ivy (you know my thing about this!) front and back as well as "Old Mans Beard" which had grown so thick and tangled that it had gone all around the TV Ariel as well.

We also suggested that the drive was looking very shabby and that taking off 2" of top coating and replacing with new 20mm Berkshire shingle was needed, which the client agreed.

So we set to work and did the blitz in the first day and the drive on the second. I did think that we could do this by hand, however it soon transpired that it was too big a task. So I called our friends at A4 Hire in Hungerford who came to the rescue with a 3/4 ton digger at really short notice.

Whilst we were doing the drive, the estate agent started showing a couple of prospective buyers around, which I must admit I thought was a little odd, however they were most impressed that the owner was still doing work on the house and that the improvement from the Estate Agents literature to the new look was pretty radical.

Anyway, job done, happy customer - and best of all, one of the prospective buyers came back for a second visit later that day and made an offer just short of the asking price!

Just goes to show that spending a few hundred on getting the pro's in to do a blitz will save or make you thousands - take a note from that woman from the House Doctor programs.

I hope I am not quite as annoying as her......Check out the piccies.

Hedge Laying - a dying art or in revival?

Before Hedge Laying started




After Hedge Laying





Last weekend, I was lucky enough to be invited to attend a hedge laying course by my one of my neighbours. He is fortunate to have loads of neglected and over grown hedges all around his land and so we were a bit spoilt for choice really as to which hedge to do.

Our instructor for the day was John Savings of Oxford. John is one of the top hedge layers in the UK and competes and wins more often than not in the national championship - so we were in good hands from the start.

When I was a young lad, I used to help my granddad do this but even then tractor driven hedge cutters and flail cutters were just taking over and hedges were being dug out to make larger fields for more food production, so I never really took a great deal of interest in learning more about it.

Luckily, landowners and conservationists are slowing realising that open fields and barbed wire is making the countryside look terrible and that a properly layed hedge is a great wildlife habitat and an asset as it is virtually zero maintenance and lasts 50 years or so - this combined with a government grant makes hedge laying more attractive.

Anyway, we all met at Howard's house (our host) for breakfast. Alan, a teacher and brother in law of Howard, Howard, a top London Barrister and Christopher, also a Barrister started the day with a hearty cooked "Fully Monty" before we set off to work.

The hedge chosen by John was in fact possibly the worst hedge on the estate. It was full of rubbish, dead trees, fallen barbed wire fences - you name it and it was there. John's comments of "If you can lay this hedge you can lay any" filled us with some dread.

John proudly displayed to us the tools of the trade - a collection of ancient billhooks and slashers all sharpened to perfection (we soon changed that!) and of course the obligatory chainsaw. John started by attacking the hedge with the chainsaw, clearing out everything dead or not required, leaving us to drag out the debris to make a huge bonfire. It's at this point I realised that Howard had managed to rope in several volunteers to sort out his hedge Free of Charge - no wonder he is a top Barrister!

Anyway, as the Sloe Gin appeared and the sun got hotter, we soon started to learn just how effective this form of hedge repair is and as our confidence grew, the pace picked up and by lunch we had layed a good 25 metres of hedge.

Lunch was a welcome break and we all had worked up an appetite by then. Conversation was pretty much geared to hedge laying and other anecdotes from John (who has hundreds!) as well as many funny comments from the rest of the group - Alan was particularly amusing and had us crying with laughter on several occasions!

Back to work and the worse was yet to come. This hedge had a number of Elm trees in it, some dead some almost dead and some smaller ones fully alive. We were all amazed that a tree approximately 8 inches round could be layed as easily as a small Hawthorn bush - John just took it all in his stride. He even managed to drop a tree on Howard - thankfully a small one which just bounced of without injury!

The icing on the cake was to finish off the hedge with woven hazel sticks, called binders, and hammer in the stakes and trim to size. This basically holds it all together and creates a very strong and attractive hedge. The before and after pictures really show what a difference we made to this pretty awful hedge and just how attractive and nice them finished item looks.

We are all keen to attack the rest of the hedge over the coming month or so and complete this project, so I will keep you informed as to progress.

I would like to say a big thank you to Howard and Catherine for the invite and lunch etc, Alan for just being really funny, Karen my other half for the pictures, Christopher for nicking all the wood before I had chance to and John for a most enjoyable day.

If any of you want quotes for hedge laying - just drop me a line....