"SteveB" wrote in message
...
JoeSpareBedroom wrote:

Picture this: An alley between a house and the neighbor's fence. 10
feet wide with a concrete sidewalk which comes around the house. The
walk's a couple of feet wide and the rest of the alley is grass. My
son wants to place a wooden fence across this alley, but include a
gate. It's at his mom's house, so I'm just the advisor. He's talking
about using stockade fence sections.

My take on this is that the stationary part of the fence (over the
grass) will be one more thing his mother has to use the trimmer on,
and she hates the machine. Why not create one big swinging gate that
can be opened flush against the neighbor's fence during mowing? I
haven't made any calls to lumber yards yet, but could swear I've seen
wooden gates that big, probably at farms. Maybe with a roller at the
bottom to support the weight?

Or, am I imagining this?

You can do that, but you can't build it out of fence panels alone. You
could start with two fence panels, but you'll have to add all sorts of
bracing.

A ten-foot gate won't support itself. It will have to have a wheel on
the end.

Options:
* Two five-foot sections that open from the middle. These are small
enough to support themselves.
* Put paving stones under the bottom of the fence so you don't have to
use the trimmer.
* Use persistent plant killer at the bottom. This keeps *anything*
from growing where you spray it for one year. This is what I do to keep
my grass out of the neighbor's flower bed.

--
Steve Bell
New Life Home Improvement
Arlington, TX

Paving stones - there's an interesting idea. Maybe use some that are wide
enough so the mower can be rolled on top and the blades can reach the edge
where the stones meet the grass.