Deck Gardening

Gardening on decks  has made a comeback that rivals the comebacks of Brett Favre, George Foreman or Evander Holyfield.  The new “green” movement, combined with the 100-mile diet has stimulated backyarders and urban farmers to rejuvenate their green space into black and green (as in soil and veggies).

But the new gardening enthusiasm has opened myriad new prospects for petunias and venues for veggies.  Across urban North America, rooftops are blooming with flowers, glowing with grass and topped with trees, as green roof technologies offer an assortment of benefits.  Indoor gardens, hydroponics and soilless systems grace countertops and coffee tables.  Even patios, verandas and decks relinquish space to pots and planters of all sorts.

This gardening phenomenon (don’t call it a craze!) offers even more opportunity for avid green-spacers.  Built-in growing stations – larger than pots, and with watering or light-guiding systems – are found on deck edges and parapets of balconies.  One of the most novel approaches is to design eco-friendly fences with recesses and alcoves for favourite flowers or fruit bushes. 

More than decorative, these planting spots add a chance to include fresh fruits and vegetables to your city diet, fresh from your own city farm. 

Some of these planters have been incorporated into wooden fences, offering a break from the visual straight-line perspective that conventional walled fences present.  Others have been built into stone retaining walls, or dry-stack fencing.  Still more fit nicely into cinder-block or split rail fences.  Indeed, planters constructed into fence lines can be included in any material system, from wood to PVC. 

Planters that have been included in the integrity of a fence also may add stability, offering reinforcement against wind load, and a solid footing for longer lines of continuous-run fencing.

But garden fences offer the ability to combine a variety of fence styles and materials in one run.  Simply by including climbing vines, like clematis, grapes, hops or scarlet runner, the galvanized chain link fence, open horizontal board fence or even split rail fence is provided with a decorative façade that hides the plainness of these materials.

Constructing these fences, though, requires a professional touch and a personal flair for eye appeal.  For this reason, homeowners are urged to work with a quality fence builder, to ensure that their dreams and mental images are realized in the final design.

While the days of back lot vegetable gardens are not likely to return to the prominence that they had in the 1940s, the new gardener sees significantly more options and avenues to explore his own inner gardener.  And fences, no longer, are a barrier to garden growth!

How to Use Deck Pads

The term “deck pad” actually is an inappropriate term for a construction product that most often is used inappropriately, largely because of its name.

Many of the cement blocks used as deck support blocks actually are nothing more than 15 by 15, 18 by 18 or 24 by 24 inch patio slabs.  These slabs are generally 1.5 to 2” thick, which is insufficient for most deck applications.  Rather, a thickness of 3 or more inches on a pad is needed to bear the weight of most deck posts.

In addition, because deck pads seem so simple to use, they are often installed incorrectly.  A deck pad for any sized deck needs to be installed only after a level area of the surface soil has been scraped away and a layer of one inch of sand per square foot laid down and packed in place, to allow for proper drainage.

By installing the pads in a manner that is not solid or level, excess weight bears down on a smaller area of the pad, and can contribute to the pad breaking.  If the pad and deck are installed on a sloped surface, the posts (generally 4 by 4 inch) rest unevenly on the surface, and may actually slip downward over time, resulting in partial or complete collapse of the deck.

One of the better deck pad designs “traps” the four by four post in a raised square of concrete, preventing it from slipping.  However, where the height of the deck exceeds two feet or more, those four by four supports become nothing more than free-standing stilts, relying on whatever anchor is used to hold them to the deck framework.  With repeated vibration, or even strong winds, those pillars may shift.

The most appropriate use for deck pads is where the deck is not elevated at too high a distance from the ground, and where the deck is not excessively large. In some situations, deck pads may be used to support small extensions, or in between piles that are secured in the ground.  In this manner, they act as supplementary supports.

Deck pads also can be used where the deck is securely anchored to the building, and where there is no angled pressure or weight on the pad.  Ideally, deck pads work best where the cupped square opening allows the deck beams to rest fully in the cradle, rather than on a short or long post.

In softer soils, deck pads will rise and fall with varying moisture content, resulting in uneven deck plates.  For this reason, they must be installed on packed porous surfaces.

Many cities specify, in their building codes, where pads may or may not be employed.  If you are in doubt, and if your region does not have its own building code, review that of a nearby city, to determine what they see as the minimum standard for the use of deck pads versus footings, piles or foundations.