Soil Retention Blogs

As the weather becomes cold and wet and the evenings draw darker it’s easy to neglect your garden. However, preparing some vegetable beds or water features now means everything will be ready for you to enjoy when the spring comes in.

Railway sleepers are excellent for flower and vegetable beds, ponds, water features, decking steps, furniture, edging and borders. When using railway sleepers for raised beds remember the importance of membrane and good drainage, as well as choosing non creosoted sleepers for any area in which you wish to grow vegetation. 2.4M 100 x 200mm softwood railway sleepers are ideal for use with plant borders and raised beds. If you prepare the beds during winter, by spring you will already have plants growing ready for the summer months.

There are some plants excellent for winter months that will keep your garden looking cheerful all year round. Holly, Christmas Rose, Dogwood, Viburnum and Wintersweet are all examples of great winter plants to consider adding to your garden.

The winter is also a good time to make new edging round heavy clay soil, as frost can help to break the soil down, making it easier to dig and manage. AVS Fencing Supplies have a great range of shovels and digging spades to help you with your garden projects.

For the full range of railway sleepers, visit your local branch or shop online.

You don't have to join The Green Party to help planet earth. You can simply use gravelboard when you are erecting your garden fence! Why? Because then your fences will last longer, and you will be saving lots of trees, as well as saving yourself heaps of money and backbreaking work in the future.

What are Gravelboards?

Gravelboards fit under a fence at ground level. They can be timber gravel boards which are used withTimber Posts or Concrete Gravelboards used with slotted concrete fence posts. These are normally 6”/150mm or 12” / 300mm high.

Whats the purpose of Gravelboards?

1. 
   Gravelboards keep expensive timber fence panels or fence pales ends off of the damp ground thus protecting from rotting. Timber gravelboards are cheap and easy to replace so can in a way be sacrificed.
2. 
   Gravelboards are essential for fencing on sloping ground. Fence panels have to be stepped which can leave a gap at ground level – a gravel board can help as one end can be buried into the ground meaning the other end will fill the gap.
3. 
   Concrete gravelboards (the type used for fence panels and with concrete fence posts), can be used to hold back soil if ground levels on each side of fence different. For example, between your garden and your neighbours garden.

Remember to allow for longer posts to accommodate – sometimes you can use lower panels so the fence does not become too tall. Like Fence Panels, gravelboard is normally fixed between posts rather than on the front face, therefore, wood blocks called cleats are normally used to aid fixing with nails.

Gravelboards can be used anywhere there is garden fencing, not forgetting, commercial sites like factories .