12 Great Fences and Gates

Gardening is my love, second to kitchen design, so when we bought our dilapidated old farmhouse in Michigan, the first item on our agenda was to install a fence. Our one-acre lot was nothing but dead grass, a gravel parking 'pad' right off the road, and 1/4 acre of tall weeds that concealed the barn.

We immediately hired someone to cut the circular driveway and install our fence. My husband and I debated over the design: I wanted a picket fence for charm and practicality; my husband wanted something simple and with open sight lines, such as a split-rail fence. The problem was, split rails won't help keep in Mr. Darley, our rascally golden retriever. We decided to settle the debate with a wire grid along the bottom half of a split rail, with picket gates. It's taken five years for the yard to grow into what it is today.

Fences and gates don't have to be merely functional. They are wonderful ways to define your property or to provide structure for garden plants to grow up against. And they can be as interesting as the plants surrounding them.