Maintaining decking and keeping it in a good state of repair not only keeps it looking good, but also safe. Decks should really be cleaned down thoroughly at least once a year, and although you don’t necessarily need to re-coat with wood preserver annually, the more regularly you do it, the longer your deck will last. read more »
If you’re a keen gardener, then building a greenhouse in your garden is probably going to be a job that you have to tackle at some stage. Clearly, before you begin, you need to take plenty of time deciding on position. You need to site the greenhouse in full sun, if at all possible – shade can be created, but the sun cannot be redirected! Make access to the greenhouse easy and consider benching and staging possibilities before you build it. read more »
A pergola provides an attractive garden structure for supporting and growing plants. In the past, you’d have to measure and cut all the components to size yourself, but these days building a pergola is made much easier as you can simply buy one in kit form. You can build a pergola in many parts of the garden to provide an attractive focal point or to act as a screen or even build one over a patio or path to add further interest to the area. Below is an example of a typical kit pergola. read more »
One way of gaining greater privacy in your garden is to add trellis to a fence. This also allows you to grow creeping plants along the trellis, which will clearly be attractive as well as obscuring. Fortunately, the process is very straightforward as all that is required to add some extra height to a fence post is a post extender – you may also find these called post collars or post extension collars. read more »
If you are erecting a fence on concrete, you can dig out holes and sink the posts in place, but it is much easier to use bolt-down brackets. These brackets are simply fixed to the concrete surface, and the fence posts are inserted and secured into the bracket socket. The technique shown here deals with a panel fence, but you can adjust the method according to your particular fence design. It is also worth you reading my guide – ‘Erecting a fence on soft ground’, read more »