Although it is common to find many artificial additions to a garden, such as large fountains, benches, and statuary, it is good practice to keep unnatrual things to a minimum. Those three things are fine, as they help to accentuate certain aspects. This article focuses on structural additions that should always be temporary.

Wire fences are not desirable for a permanent purpose, but are permissible when you want to mark the garden boundaries whilst a hedge is still in the growing stage. At the points where the wires start and end, the posts should be stout and well strutted, to enable sufficient tension to be put on the wire to make it taut. The intermediate posts may be lighter, but should be firmly planted to ensure they remain upright.

Barbed wire is an invention of the enemy and should never be admitted into the garden. The ordinary galvanized iron telegraph wire is the most suitable. You can attach it to the stretching post by "screw eyes," which should be galvanized, or by the simple method of passing it through holes made with a carpenter's gimlet and twisting a knot in the protruding end.

The stretching is best managed with a block and tackle, but if you do not have such a device, you may make shift with an extemporized lever. When the wire is taut, you should knock the end with a hammer close to the hole and turn wire around a stout nail two or three times. You can rub the kinks and bends out of the wire with the handle of the hammer, while it is taut, just before the final tightening.

There are two good types of open fences you can use for enclosing the garden. In the all-rail pattern the post heads are made separately and nailed on, their purpose being to protect the end grain of the post from the weather. Temporary fences may be made of rough unbarked cedar or other timber that may be readily and cheaply procurable.

The lattice or "rustic" fence is short-lived, and in long lengths its diagonal pattern is monotonous. Its appearance is much improved by adding a top rail of halved timber flat side down. A better type one in when the posts are made of unbarked cedar, and the side and top rails of the same halved. Ordinary iron cut nails may be used with advantage, as their "rusting-in" makes them hold much better.

In setting out a fence you need to take that you keep a straight line from point to point, by using a stretched cord as a guide for fixing the posts. The tops of the posts should be adjusted in line by sighting, two T pieces being fixed as levels to work from, one at each end of the stretch. The spacing of the posts will depend upon the design and character of the fence and the length of timber purchased for the rails, but ten feet is the maximum advisable, and less is better. There are also all kinds of iron fencing, which are suitable for the garden.

A trellis naturally falls into this section, but you do need to be aware of its proper use. A ready-made trellis is so cheap that it does not pay to make it at home when you want the ordinary diamond pattern. In erecting a screen of trellis a well-framed you should provide support because there is very little strength or stiffness in the trellis itself. The rule should be to support all the edges by allowing them to butt against the center of the frame, securing them by nails.

The practice of leaving a raw edge at the top is slovenly, and leads to the premature decay of the trellis. All trellises should be painted with two or three coats of good oil color, well worked into the angles at the crossings; for it is there that the rain finds its way in and starts the process of decay. The diagonal pattern has come to be so common that most gardeners accept it without question, but where much trellis is used it looks better arranged with the laths vertical and horizontal.

If you are handy with tools, and have lots of time, you can try your hand at making a "woven trellis" using cleft oak laths. To do this, you need to design squares of sufficient size to allow the laths to bend easily. You would also need to pin them at the crossings with oak pegs. A trellis of this kind does not require painting and it has a character of its own which raises it far above the machine made product. You can also omit interlacing and join the laths in the ordinary way, either with pegs or galvanized nails.