Take the time to assess your goals--what do you envision the garden bed looking like when repairs are completed. I'm guessing your lilies, tulips, columbine, poppies, iris will come back eventually after they recover from being disturbed.

Explain to your fencing company what concerns you have and ask if they can offer any guarantees vis a vis the survival of your plants.

Your neighbor has shown to be an ally in your gardening efforts.. Tradition (and often law) calls for putting the nice side of a fence facing out (the street or neighbor). To do this requires attaching panels to posts from the neighbor's side anyway, so just ask company to do all work from there. If they do have to step on your side, have them lay boards or plywood panels down to distribute their weight.

Or alternatively, wait until late fall to have the new privacy fence installed.

Explain to your fencing company what concerns you have

After much hemming and hawing I finally decided to bite the bullet and replace completely our falling apart deck this past Fall. What had held me back was the perennial gardens that butt up right against it on two sides as I so didn't want these many plants trampled. It was good that even in October the plants were still up and healthy and so the contractors could see what was involved. But by the time they started many were going dormant. The company we decided to go with made the effort to put in temporary fencing around the areas in question and overall I was impressed by how much care they took. We will see if there were any casualties come this spring.

So what I suggest is show pictures of your "fence garden" to prospective contractors and explain how important it is to you that they take care when doing the job. I am not sure if it is better to wait so they can see the actual plants and so attempt to work around them or to have the job done as soon as possible, before the plants arise in the spring.

there is no reason ... not to dig and move .. temporarily ... the most at risk perennials .. move them back after the project ...

you could get a truck load of mulch.. and just heal plants in ..

you could also get some landscape paint .. and mark other plants ... just spray circles around the plants.. or even spray the plants themselves ... enough to make them obvious ....

it is much easier to avoid a plant that catches your attention .. rather than hoping all is seen at all moments in time ...

yes.. it will be ugly... for a season ... so be it ...

next ... the Brits call it healing in .. lol .. a method of encouraging more divisions.. they have been know to go stompin around and doing such on purpose ... lol ...

finally .. simply go zen on the potential to some loss ... blame the storm ...

focus on the job that need be done.. not the garden ... get the job done.. rework the garden ...

ken

https://www.google.com/search?q=landscape+marking+paint&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjUu8iiwdPSAhXm4IMKHU-LAhYQ_AUIBygC&biw=890&bih=743

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https://www.google.com/search?q=landscape+marking+paint&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjUu8iiwdPSAhXm4IMKHU-LAhYQ_AUIBygC&biw=890&bih=743

It can be the post holes that result in the most "fuss and mess" if these holes need to be redug and repoured.

(Some now use "helical piles" instead of digging and pouring cement, This technique generates so much less mess. We had this done for our deck).

A pedant speaks... we call it 'heeling in' Ken...just covering the plant roots with soil and firming it in with the heel of our foot.

We do use a method called mounding, to cover the newly cut crown of a plant with a heap of soil. The emerging new shoots will have made root growth from meristem cells at the stem base and each leaf node...and can be separated with a sharp spade.

yeah .. yeah.. yeah ... ive stepped on numerous plants ... i didnt credit said stupidity with a 'technique name' .... lol ..

spellcheck failed me ... lol

ken

ps: i think i read about it.. in a british hosta book.... pre WWW days ...

I don't know when either heeling in or mounding would be used with hostas. Mounding is often used for Gooseberries. Works better than cuttings. Heeling in is generally for shrubs and trees needing to be temporarily stored.

Did it take down the posts as well as the pickets? This week I am moving around 45 feet of picket fence (long story) myself. Putting up a fence is not difficult, it just takes time. If the posts are still up and all you need are 2x4s and pickets, you could do it and it would probably take less work than moving, heeling in, and returning your plants. And you can approach the job from your neighbor's side and not disturb the plants.

We have to replace all the rotten 4X4s and all the boards (pickets). The boards will be 2 inches apart and staggered on both sides so they will be working from my side too.

I have in the past dug up entire gardens to have a deck built and again to have a large cherry tree cut down. A lot of work, just before I open a garden centre and I'm working 40 plus hours a week. There was a lot of damage done by the 97 km/hr wind so conractors are scheduling into April and we just had 10 cm of snow.

I love the idea of spray painting around the special larger ones so the contractor sees where not to step and I will dig up some of my poppies.