Hey, so we have this old crappy original garden bed area against the fence. As you can see the neighbours soil is starting to come through. What do you think could be done with it? without putting up a wall of bricks… it’s such an eye sore. Any thought would be appreciated.
You could trellis Wisteria or something like it. It will cover the Whole fence in a few years and have tons of colorful flowers for many,many years…
In zone 5b I suspect just about anything you plant there will die back enough to expose the fence every winter. If you want something productive you might consider something like thornless black berries, though you may not be popular with your neighbor in a couple of years when shoots start coming up on their side of the fence.
Who’s fence is it and why does it have 3 bottom rails? I can’t really see the soil creep in this photo. Blackberries do not stray as much as raspberries, but I do not recommend any caneberries against a fence because maintenance and harvest are more difficult.
Cutting corrugated fiberglass or metal panels into thinner strips and attaching to the bottom would keep things at bay.
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Are you looking for flowers or fruit?
Thanks for the suggestions. It’s on the west side of the property and gets maybe only 2 hours of sun due to summer trees over head. This fence is ours I guess? It had fallen over about 3 years ago in a storm. The neighbour was kind enough to fix it. I like the metal sheet idea. I used to have a big gooseberry bush there for probably 12 years until the fence came down and soil was never all removed, suffocated the gooseberry. It has since been cleaned up a bit removed the heavy crappy clay soil. Fruits would be nice I have a small raspberry in there somewhere. To the right of this area there is a chester blackberry that’s been there for 2 years, I could transplant that?.
Virginia ceeper could hide the fence nicely. It grows well in shade… actually it grows well just about anywhere. Spreads fairly quickly if neglected, but not impossible to manage.
build a raised bed around it and find yourself a shade tolerant plant to put there. thimbleberries are shade tolerant, produce fruit and are thornless with nice foliage. i put some in last year. nice big maple like leaves. they like clay soil and moisture. Oikios and Hartmanns sells them. if you like evergreens , canadian hemlock is probably the most beautiful foliage I’ve seen. i have 2 in the yard and they can be pruned to be kept as a shrub. also shade tolerant.