The wattle fence

Fences have always been a part of the rural landscape specially in mountain pastures in the northern South Tyrol.

In our landscape there is a type of wooden fence with an artistically woven structure - the so-called woven ‚Speltenzaun’.

A few years ago we decided to install this type of fence around our vegetable garden. The result is a very attractive and useful wattle fence - quite a rare sight.

How to make this kind of fence?

The “Speltenzaun’ is made without any nails, wire or other fixing devices. We need wooden sticks or “Spelten”. We carbonize one side of the wooden sticks - so these remain resistant. Than the wooden sticks or ‚Spelten’ are simply laid on top of each other between the upright wooden poles, which have woven rings of bendy twigs or ‚widen’ wound around them to fix them together.

A trick: before we plait the twigs around the wooden sticks they were heated and so they are flexible. Once the heated spruce branches cool down, they are rigid and keep the fence better.

Creating a fence like this, stands for: “make use of nature, without destroying it’.