Natural Boundaries at Le Mura Villa

 

Soon after arriving at Le Mura, I realised I wanted to blend my planting with the land rather than carving into it. The wildflowers and olive groves are so beautiful in their own right that I want everything to merge into the surroundings. In recent years we have needed to keep the wildlife out so fencing was a conundrum. I didn't want wire fencing. On the way up to the house was a lovely old wooden Tuscan fence but animals could pass through easily there we planted large rambling roses that are beautiful but oh so much work pruning them each year.

I really didn't know how to keep the wild boar out of the olive grove until a dear friend Paul came up with the system he had used years ago farming in Portugal to keep his pigs in. His partner is our chief olive pruner and while Dana was pruning the trees we started weaving the fences with prunings after Enzo had put up sturdy posts. How ergonomic is that?  The boars it seems don't break through a solid barrier and where the deer jumped over we made the fences higher. After three years we have fenced the whole property and these fences have needed much less maintenance than I imagined. I was tickled pink to find that the same method was used on Hampstead Heath.

In another area, old posts were enough.  It was, in fact, fun and not hard work to build these fences and meant we didn't need to do any burning.