Garden and Deer Fence Installation in Anderson, SC

Garden and deer fence installation is two jobs stacked on one post line. The bottom two feet have to stop animals that go through and under, and the top has to be high enough that a whitetail does not treat it as a step over.

We build raised bed surrounds, orchard and vegetable plot enclosures and full deer fence lines across Anderson County and Greenville County. Most of the calls come from properties that back onto woods, pasture or the Lake Hartwell corridor, where the browsing pressure is constant rather than occasional. Quotes are free and done on site.

What our garden and deer fence installation includes

A garden fence is judged on whether anything got in, so we quote the parts that decide that rather than just the fence height.

• A walk of the plot with you, including where the browsing damage already is
• Height set against what you are keeping out, not a standard panel size
• Mesh graded through the height: tight at the bottom, open above the rabbit line
• Bottom edge trenched in or folded outward as an apron where groundhogs are the problem
• Line posts set to the tension the mesh needs, closer on a tall run than a short one
• Corner and end posts braced, since a tensioned wire fence pulls hard on both ends
• A gate wide enough for a wheelbarrow, a garden cart or a mower, not a 32 inch walk gate
• Raised bed surrounds and cage tops built to your bed dimensions where that is the better answer
• Removal of the old netting, T posts or temporary fence the plot has been limping along with
• Tie in to existing fence, tree lines or outbuildings so there is no gap at the joint

We also tell you when the whole property does not need fencing. Enclosing a 40 by 60 vegetable plot costs a fraction of fencing five acres, and it stops the same deer.

When a garden fence has to become a deer fence

Height is set by the animal with the highest reach, and a whitetail is an athlete. The working number in this trade is seven to eight feet, because deer clear a five or six foot fence from a standing start without much effort. They jump high or long, and they are reluctant to launch into a space where they cannot see the landing. That behavior, more than the wire itself, is what a deer fence trades on. Signs your plot has crossed the line from garden fence to deer fence:

• Hostas, daylilies, beans and young fruit trees stripped at a clean height of about four to five feet
• Ragged torn ends on the browse rather than clean cuts, since deer tear where rabbits clip
• Tracks or beds along a wooded edge, a creek line or a power easement next to the plot
• Damage that arrives overnight in quantity rather than a nibbled plant here and there
• Bark rubbed off young trunks in fall, which is antler rub and not feeding at all
• A four foot fence already in place that the damage simply went over

If the damage stops below knee height, you have rabbits, not deer, and you do not need eight feet of anything. That is a cheaper fence and we will say so.

The bottom two feet do the other half of the work

Standard two by four welded wire stops a deer and lets a rabbit stroll through. Cottontails need one inch mesh or tighter along the bottom, and they will use any gap the ground gives them. Groundhogs dig, so the mesh goes twelve inches into the ground or folds outward as an apron. Voles and chipmunks need quarter inch hardware cloth, which usually makes more sense wrapped around individual beds than run around a whole plot.

Three levels of garden fence, and what each one stops

Most gardens in this county end up at one of three specifications. The right one is decided by what is eating the plants, not by the size of the garden.

There is a fourth option worth knowing about. Deer judge depth poorly, so two shorter fences set a few feet apart can turn them back where one fence of the same height would not. It costs more in material than a single tall run and it eats more ground, so we only suggest it where an eight foot fence is not allowed or not wanted.

How we install a garden or deer fence

A tall wire fence is a tension structure. It holds its line because the ends are braced, not because the posts are close together.

1. Lay out the enclosure with you, leaving working room between the fence and the beds
2. Site the gate where the cart actually comes in, usually off the driveway or the shed
3. Request utility locates and mark irrigation and drip lines, which are always shallow in a garden
4. Set corner and end posts first and brace them, since every bit of tension pulls on those
5. Set line posts to a string line at the spacing the mesh height calls for
6. Let the concrete cure before hanging or tensioning anything
7. Trench or fold the bottom of the mesh, then backfill and tamp so nothing can lift it
8. Hang and tension the mesh from the top down, keeping the top line straight across dips
9. Hang gates, close the gap under them, and walk the base for daylight

Most garden enclosures are a one or two day job. Ground that has been worked for years digs easily, which is one of the few places in this county where the clay helps rather than fights.

Deer pressure in Anderson County gardens

Lake Hartwell borders this county with about 962 miles of shoreline across some 56,000 acres of water, and the Corps of Engineers land along it is wooded right down to the edge. That shoreline is a continuous travel corridor for deer, and the properties that back onto it or onto the creeks that feed it see browsing all year rather than in a season. Powdersville, Townville, Sandy Springs and the rural end of Pendleton generate most of our deer fence calls for the same reason: houses sit against the woods with nothing in between.

Climate is the second factor. Anderson is humid subtropical with no dry season and about 48 inches of rain a year, so a garden here is green and worth eating from March into November. That is a long window for pressure, and it is why netting thrown over beds in spring rarely survives the season. Sun and moisture also destroy light plastic mesh faster than people expect, which is why we run steel where a fence has to last.

Then there is the ground itself. Cecil clay drains slowly, so a post hole holds water, and a wood post set in a wet hole in a state with the termite pressure South Carolina carries is on a clock. Garden fence posts sit in the wettest, most irrigated soil on the property. We use ground contact rated lumber where the look calls for wood, and steel where it does not.

962 miles of shorelineLake Hartwell borders Anderson County with about 56,000 acres of water and a wooded edge that works as a year round deer corridor.

What drives the price of a garden or deer fence

Garden fencing has a wider price spread than any other work we do, because the specifications are so different at each end. What moves the number:

• Enclosed perimeter, which grows fast when people fence the yard instead of the plot
• Height, since seven and eight foot runs need longer posts set deeper and braced harder
• Mesh type and grade, from light poly through welded wire to woven and coated steel
• Whether the bottom is trenched in, aproned outward, or simply pinned to grade
• Bracing at corners and ends, which a tensioned fence cannot do without
• Gate count and width, and whether a tractor or a truck has to get in
• Post material, with steel costing less than the cedar some gardens want
• Slope and tree roots, which slow post setting and add grade gaps to close
• Raised bed surrounds or cage tops, which are priced per bed rather than per foot
• Tear out of old netting and T posts, which takes longer than people expect

A rabbit fence around a vegetable plot is one of the least expensive jobs we quote. A full deer enclosure around an orchard is not. Both are cheaper than replanting every year.

Keeping a tall fence from looking like a compound

The real objection to an eight foot fence is that nobody wants to look at one. That is a solvable problem, and it comes down to what your eye actually picks up.

• Black mesh and black posts recede against trees and shade, while galvanized flashes in sun and draws the eye
• Thin material disappears, so a fine gauge black wire reads as a haze at thirty feet where a rail does not
• Fewer, taller posts look lighter than many short ones, and the mesh does the containing anyway
• Setting the line inside a tree line or hedge lets the background swallow the fence
• A wood or aluminum lower section with mesh above gives a finished face at eye level and a near invisible top
• Keeping the top line straight and level across dips matters more visually than the height does

Most people who call want a garden fence that is both stylish and practical. That is the whole brief on this kind of work. The fence has to stop a deer at three in the morning and still look like part of the garden at noon.