How You can Build a Garden Gate

So you want to know how to build a garden gate? Join me as I share with you the garden gate, fence, and arbor that my husband and I built back in the late 90's out of hickory sticks, and jute. Sounds cool huh? As you can see from the photos, it was more than cool, it was awesome! So why would you want a garden gate anyway? Well, as you can see from the photos of our tiny garden in our backyard, our garden gate created a really nice garden area that was set apart from the rest of our yard. We even made a bench and put it in so we could sit in our garden and enjoy all of it's beauty. Another benefit to our garden gate was that it made a barrier to our little garden, that made it harder for our 2 young children, who were 2 and 3 at the time, to get into the garden and walk all over our flowers and veggies. We also proved that you can take twine, and sticks, and build a beautiful garden gate and fencing, and arbor too!

How do you build a garden gate? It's actually easier than you might think. We've done two garden gates, the one I will give you instructions to build, the other was a pre made fence, that you install with big metal stakes, and post and lots of screws and nails, and hinges, and latches, and.... It was a pain! The hickory stick fence on the other hand, was so much easier, much more fun, and when it was all done, it felt real good to look at it and say, "we built this ourselves, from sticks and twine". It really felt good!

First thing you need to do, is section off where your garden will be, if you do not already have a garden established. Next, you have to find a source for your hickory. Of course any straight tree branches will work, they just need to be close to the same size, length, and around. We went with hickory because there was a hickory furniture store near us, and they always had throw away sticks that were eaten a bit by bugs, or a little warped, or in some way unusable for their furniture. The store would give us everything they threw out, so we had a good supply of hickory sticks, and that is what inspired the garden gate to begin with! The next thing you need is a lot of twine, it can be any twine available, we used jute, but I recommend using hemp, because of it's awesome strength! Our jute started falling apart rather fast.

Okay, now that you have your twine, and sticks, all you need is a shovel, a post hole digger, (not a necessity, but a huge help), and a bunch of screws, and a screwdriver, (a screw bit in a drill is awesome fast), and we're ready to build and install our home made hickory garden gate, and arbor.

Now that we have all our supplies, we are ready to start. First things first. Decide where each stick will be placed for your arbor, and each fence section, grab your post hole digger, (or shovel), and start digging all of your holes that will serve as your post holes to support your sticks, and hold up your garden gate and fencing.

Once your holes are dug, start sticking your sticks into the holes, (be sure your holes are all the same depth so your fence don't do a stair step thing), and pack the dirt in tight around them. Now we are ready to attach our horizontal sticks to our sticks we just placed in the ground, and attach them together. You can see in the photos how we placed the horizontal sticks along side the sticks in the ground, and wrapped them with twine. Before we wrapped the twine around, we put a few screws in to help secure the sticks, and hold them in place while we wrapped the twine around them. We put three lateral tiers on our garden gate, but you can do two, or four, whatever you like best. Continue the process around your entire garden area, leaving an opening to enter your garden. This is where our arbor will go.

Now that our garden gate and fence are complete, it's time to build the feature attraction, our arbor. Working with very straight sticks, we were unable to build an arbor with a rounded top, so we made us a top! Our arbor was built much the same way as the fence, only with more sticks, which were much shorter, and a criss cross pattern going up the arbor sides, and across the top for strength and sturdiness. Since our arbor was built for two Clematis plants, we then took twine, and criss crossed it from the ground, to the top of the arbor, so our Clematis plants would be able to vine up the sides and across the top of the arbor. You can see a bunch of photos we took, just hop on over to my web site at, Carmella's Place, and check them all out.

That's it! Now sit back, pat yourself on the back, and say, "WOW, I built a rustic looking fence and garden gate, with a few simple items and my own two hands! Now is that an awesome feeling, or is that an AWESOME feeling!

Enjoy your new domain, and happy gardening in your new, awesomely. beautiful garden area! You can also add a little extra spice to your garden like we did. Just get some flat rocks, and lay them in a pattern and curve yourself a stone walk way!

Supplies:
Twine
straight tree branches the same length and size around
screws
shovel
post hole digger, (helpful, but not necessary)
screwdriver, or drill with screwdriver bit
imagination
flat rocks if you want a walk way

Note: We got all our hickory from a hickory furniture store for free! If you have a hickory store, or pine store near you, go in and ask for their throw away stuff. In many cases, you are helping them out by getting rid of the scrap, and they are helping you build an awesome garden gate for next to nothing at all! Our flat rocks we used to make our walk way, we got from a river in Indiana. If you live near a river, have a look. Where we got ours was from a quarry type place. Cost us $5.00 for all the flat rocks we could gather and stick in our van! As you can see from the photos, we brought home a lot of flat rocks for that $5.00! Total cost of project... less than $10.00!