English Gardens wood picket fence

English Gardens wood picket fence – Component Parts

First we need to break down the picket fence into component parts of wood fence posts and wood fence pickets. The rails are always the same so no need to address the fence backing rails.

The natural wood picket post will either be a flat top post (acceptable to receive secondary decorative post caps) or decorative posts caps carved into the post ( most popular being the french gothic post top). My personal favorite is the carved (or routed) post top because it is actually carved out of the post and will not tilt or fall off like the add on caps. Carving the popular french gothic post top design is a great choice because it looks great, is complementary to most fencing styles, AND this style sheds water! Water damage on flat top post can be a problem with some types of lumber so shedding of the water is desirable.

Now, let’s take a look at the picket options. The most common is the standard dog ear wood picket board which you’ll find at most lumber yards. Called a dog ear picket because the top of the board is clipped (like marking a page in a book by folding over top corner). Why is the top of these fence boards automatically clipped you might ask? Great question. In East Tennessee few properties are ever level so we are always dealing with changes in elevation or grade. Running a straight line with natural wood fence is easy, but what about climbing hills. It is all about OPTICAL ILLUSIONS with fencing and hills. You see the clipped top of the fence boards do not meet each other corner to corner. If they did you would see that they did not line up while climbing or descending a hill. With the top of the boards clipped, or dog eared your mind completes the line connection for a finished look. Don’t believe me? Check out your neighbors fence on an incline to see for yourself.

The dog ear picket top has been around for many years and has been a crowd favorite, but lots of homeowners want a break from the dog ear picket look. The gothic picket, or rounded gothic picket (we don’t like the pickets to have sharp points for safety reasons) is more representative of the traditional English wood picket fencing. Other options include inverted dog ear, french gothic, trey top picket and more.

My recommendation to homeowners is to use pickets and posts that are attractive, complementary to the home and readily available for any future repairs. You can pretty much count of doing some repairs some time in the future. As a natural product the natural wood picket fence will need some maintenance and repairs over the years. Also we see repairs from tree damage, cars running thru the fence, golf carts, lawnmowers, bobcats ….

Natural Wood Picket Fence – Styling Your New Fence

The CLASSIC ENGLISH NATURAL WOOD PICKET FENCE is a very popular style for children and pets, typically about 4′ to 5′ high. The pickets are the same height for a clean crisp look.

In the past few years we have seen more interest in the English Gardens wood picket fence, the same as the Classic English but with a twist. English Gardens natural wood picket fence has staggered height pickets for a little bit different take on the natural wood picket fence.

The English Gardens natural wood picket fence is prebuilt at our factory in Powell, Tennessee just outside of Knoxville, Tennessee. You have several choices for design such as picket height (fence height 3′ – 6′), picket spacing (zero spacing to 4″ spacing), number of backing rails, post tops and picket tops.

English Gardens wood picket fence