Recycling

An unfortunate feature of having a house with a crawl space and county ordinances restricting the height of fences is that a fence is never tall enough to block the view of the neighbors.  Since we have little desire to increase our level of familiarity with the neighbors too far, we have been looking at ways to reduce visibility.

Planting trees in line with the neighbors' windows was the first step, and following a lucky find at Costco of all places, we now have three pink Jasmine plants in between them. Since Jasmine is a climber, the plants needed a trellis, and we quickly realized that we had something that might work; left over wrought iron fence pieces.

As you might recall, when we moved into the house over two years ago, the side yard had an iron fence, but we replaced that with a redwood one (with great labor).  The cut out pieces have been sitting on the side of our house ever since, waiting for an opportunity like this one.

Here is the result:

Since this picture was taken, we added cement blocks to the bottom of the fence to make it a bit taller and more sturdy, and took out the stick in the middle of the plant to let it spread out a bit more.  I expect that by this time next year, the whole of the iron fence will be covered with plant, and hopefully the neighbors will be that much harder to see.

On a side note, I cut down the last pieces of the fence this weekend, and let me tell you, there is nothing so fun as taking a Sawzall to metal fences.  Cut it like butter.