In my experience, whatever you treat or paint the fences with, they last for approx 10 years before they need replacing and frankly life's too short to spend hours painting fences every 3-5 years especially in a large garden. I'd just let them weather which doesn't take long, the faded silvery look I think is very restful and a good foil for plants.
I get that you like the look of the cedar battens. I love that too but it’s too expensive for my budget. Instead I asked my fence person to put some horizontal slats on top of a wall and painted them in Ronseal 10 year fence/wood stain in natural oak. I’m sure other stains would be great too - finding a shade for your raw wood colour is trial and error.
Perhaps you could put some batons along the top foot or so of your fenceand fill the space below with shrubs and other planting. And you could stain the slats before attaching to the fence so you don’t need to worry about paint leaching through. It might take a few years to come together though! Just a thought. 😊
@plantminded Thanks, yes I think we’ll end up doing this for the majority of the fencing. Perhaps with a couple of feature areas of slats (cedar or painted). We’ll have a think about a circular lawn too.
@JennyJ This sounds good, I think we’ll probably end up doing this and potentially painting the back fence too, as it is double thickness, maybe with a small cedar/colour slat section there too.
Kind of just not sure if the cedar slats would ‘go’ with the rest of the fence in the short term, but I guess it should eventually blend in and the focus would be on the other areas and climbers.
Cedar does look lovely initially but it will naturally fade to silver in a couple of years as will any wood unless painted/treated regularly and be indistinguishable from soft wood battens.
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
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We’ll have a think about a circular lawn too.
East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...