Replacing Hawthorne Hedging - Any Suggestions

Hi,

We have Hawthorne hedges all the way round our new house (four sides). They are really patchy and useless at keeping the dog in so we need to replace them with something else. We would like a a brick wall at the front (1 meter high) and 30 meters long with gates. Is there a general guide cost per meter for a brick wall to be built? I appreciate foundations would need to be laid once the hedges have been removed.

We are thinking of replacing the back hedge with post and rail with a heavy duty mesh stuff to stop the dog getting out. That way we get to make the most of the view over the fields at the back with minimal maintenance etc. does anyone know how long post and rail is likely to last for as my husband reckons it will rot pretty quickly.

Ideally we would like to replace the side hedges with brick wall as well but I suppose that depends on cost, however if anybody else has any alternative suggestions I would be grateful. It is about 30 meters in length so 60 meters in total accounting for both sides. We don't want concrete posts and fence panels as we don't want the painting/ maintenance hassle.

Thanks.

http://www.whatprice.co.uk/costs/garden-wall-cost-calculator.php

Hope this helps?

You could always get three quotes?

Thanks that's helpful.

Heavy duty mesh? Like the stuff farmers use to control sheep? Or the type that schools use to control kids?

The life of a post depends more on what wood you would use, how you place it in the ground, and what you treat it with. You'll always hear scare stories of rotten posts, because corners were cut and rushed.

Do it correctly and it's something the average DIYers can complete within days.

Haha, the stuff to control kids! I've seen some used on post and rail down the road from us and it looked smart. Coated in green plastic stuff. The last picture you posted is a long the lines of what I was thinking. Hubby is handy but just never done post and rail so not sure where to start.

Haha, I should have double checked what I typed before I pressed 'post' haha.

The black fencing?
Four things... 4x4" posts, welded wire, 1x4" for vertical mesh fixing, and 1x4" for horizontal fencing.
Five depending on whether you wanna use spikes to hold the posts, or concrete footings.

Additional items, would include wood preserver/timber treatment, screws or nails to fix the mesh onto the posts using the vertical 1x4"

This guy uses a machine to place his spikes, but with some patience and a string set of arms, a sledgehammer does a good job, with one person keeping an eye on the level.

Post and rail is used on farms because a tractor with post rammer can put up 100's of metres in a day, which when your a farmer with 1000s of metres of boundaries makes sense.

Its a cheap method for the above reason but the only reason it rots is because the posts are just rammed into earth. There is no reason why you cant build a post and rail type fence but set the posts properly in concrete and this will give a much longer lasting result.

What about living fences? I'm all for keeping the greenery in my garden and there are lots of options now for security hedges nowadays.

I've been looking into getting Ivy screens (non-invasive!!) but you can get other plant types too - https://www.hedgesdirect.co.uk/acatalog/Ivy_Screens.html