32 Gorgeous Garden Fence + Gate Ideas

Learn how to wall off your garden in style and help protect your garden from deer, rabbits and other hungry critters.

By: Julie Martens Forney and Maria Conti

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Pick Your Picket

The right fence frames your garden in style, but it may also have to serve a purpose such as preventing deer and other wildlife from eating your edible plants and flowers. Finding the right style with the protection your precious plants need can be a challenge. For instance, a traditional picket fence gives any yard a cottage flair, but won't keep rabbits at bay. We’ve collected a wide variety of garden fences, all will add charm, and many will also provide a safeguard. Read on to find 32 head-turning garden fence and gate ideas in a variety of styles, price points and DIY friendliness.

First up, a timeless choice for any outdoor space. Choose a classic picket for your garden fence when you want a design that’s readily available and also super easy to customize with a coat of paint. Or like this picture-perfect fence, select cedar pickets and let your wood fence weather naturally.

Consider Luxurious Lattice

A lattice fence evokes a sense of mystery, letting you catch a glimpse of the garden tucked inside. Add a rounded gate, and you get artistry, with curves and straight lines contrasting in eye-pleasing geometry. Planter boxes sit atop the fence, providing the perfect home for trailing plants like Supertunia petunias. To ensure plants in containers receive enough water, install drip irrigation or mix water-absorbing hydrogel crystals into the soil. This combination of fence with planters offers a gorgeous alternative for deer fencing.

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Add Industrious Appeal

White picket fences not your cup of tea? Give your garden a contemporary, industrial appeal with a weathered steel enclosure like this patinaed beauty. The durable fence works overtime, providing owners privacy from passersby as they tend to their raised beds while acting as an anchor for a dual-tiered potting bench.

Find More Ideas: 50 Fresh Fence Design Ideas

Install Privacy and Pest Control

Dress up a privacy fence with Asian-inspired touches, including a lattice topper to increase fence height without blocking the view. An 8-foot-tall privacy fence keeps deer out (they can’t jump that high) and prevents them from viewing your yard’s plant buffet. Even if deer smell tasty fruits and flowers, solid wood fence panels prevent them from knowing if danger lurks inside, so they won’t try to enter (even with a shorter fence).

Learn More: 30 Deer-Resistant Plants

Play "Defence" Against Deer + Rabbits

Make this striking cedar garden enclosure your muse to maintain your open and expansive backyard — without surrendering all your homegrown garden goodies to the neighborhood rabbits and deer. The tall, oh-so-charming garden fence is forged from pre-treated cedar posts and welded wire fencing that disappears against the landscape. As always, good design lies in the details, and this fence delivers with traditional finials capping each post and a pair of romantic, sloped gate doors.

See More of This Yard: This Hamptons-Inspired Backyard Channels Summer All Year Long in Minnesota

From: Bria Hammel Interiors

Weave a Wattle Fence

For a real DIY project, craft your own wattle fence. Dating to Medieval times, this woven fence comes together with nothing but sticks. You can use fruit tree or shrub trimmings, brush you’re clearing, or gleanings from your local yard waste pile. Fresh sticks work best for weaving because they’re supple, but you can use older, dried sticks, although they’ll break more easily through the process. Willow is a popular choice because you can soak dried branches and they become supple again. Other good woods for weaving include hazel, sycamore and oak.

Find More Ideas: 20 Garden Edging Ideas for Lawn Borders

Work With Upcycled Materials

Another way to stave off sticker shock when building a garden fence is by working with upcycled materials. This beautiful, eco-friendly wooden pallet fence makes quite the case for pinching pennies. The charming enclosure offers a look similar to the wooden privacy fence for far less money. Follow our step-by-step guide, linked below, to build a pallet fence for your garden at home. Pro tip: Give your pallets a fresh lease on life with an all-weather stain or paint job.

Get the How-To: How to Make a Garden Fence From Upcycled Pallets

Add an Enchanting Entry

Bring a touch of whimsy and fairytale allure to your garden with an enchanting entryway. Take notes from this classic picket fence and lead guests onto your garden path through a charming peek-through gate door.

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From: Hess Landscape Architects, Inc.

Go Gabion

For a sustainable and eco-friendly fence, consider gabion cages. Filled with stones, these metal cages form a durable fence that’s an easy DIY project. Alternating stone-filled gabions with a secondary material, such as corrugated metal panels, customizes a gabion fence and also helps maintain views from your yard. One downside to gabion cages is that the stones do attract small critters, which can, in turn, make a meal of your garden delights.

Bring On the Romance

In Nantucket, Massachusetts, pretty picket fences surround many of the island homes. The addition of a climbing rose and arched entry trellis makes every garden entrance grand. If you don’t want the upkeep of a wood fence, opt for a maintenance-free vinyl fence. When choosing roses for an entry arch, consider ones with fewer thorns, such as pink ‘Zéphirine Drouhin,’ white ‘Madame Alfred Carrière or purple ‘Veilchenblau.’

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Implement Cottage Style

Cultivate cottage garden charm by skirting a picket fence with richly scented plants, including pots of lavender and drifts of Flower Carpet Amber roses. One of the easiest ways to craft a custom fence design is varying picket length to create an undulating effect. If you love hosting birds in your garden, top a fence post with a birdhouse.

Get the How-To: How to Build a Picket Fence

Go With Wrought Iron Elegance

In past eras, wrought-iron fences wreathed wealthy estates and period homes, bringing undisputed charm to places like New Orleans and Philadelphia. But those distinctive fences rust over time, which means they need to be sanded and painted. Capture the look of old-school wrought-iron with a no-maintenance modern material, like steel or aluminum. These metal fences lend a sense of permanence to any garden, fostering an ambiance of always-been-there beauty.

Find More Ideas: 50 Fresh Fence Design Ideas

Top It Off With an Arbor

This winning combination of an arbor, an entrance gate and a border fence adorned with flowering vines is constructed from tight knot cedar. Create a similar garden enclosure in your backyard and train climbing vines to blanket the lower partition or grow cascading blooms along the integrated arbor. And while you wait for the lush greenery to fill the gaps, employ robust planters along the perimeter to add a pop of color.

Watch the How-To: How to Build a Grapevine Arbor

Put Your Money Where It Has the Biggest Payoff

When you use handsome wooden posts to anchor your fence entryway, inexpensive wire ends up looking much more finished and refined. And this option is great for deer- and animal-proofing your vegetable garden at a minimal cost. This fence proves if you put your money at the gate, you can skimp a bit more with the plain wire fence.

Get the How-To: Turn a Picket Fence Panel Into a Gorgeous Garden Gate

Go With a Traditional Deer Fence

To keep deer from making nightly forays into your yard, consider a typical deer fence design that combines a simple wood fence with wire fencing. With this fence style, height is key. Aim for eight feet or taller. If you focus on height to exclude deer, you’ll likely be successful. In areas where deer pressure is especially strong, some gardeners add an electric fence, either running a wire outside or on top of the taller fence. The wire fence disappears from view among a thickly planted mixed border of perennials and drifts roses.

Get More Ideas: 30 Deer-Resistant Plants

Top It Off With a Pergola Fence

Blend a pergola with lattice to create a bespoke garden fence. By alternating lattice fence panels with openings, the yard retains a sense of openness and connection to surrounding areas. The pergola trellis atop fence panels provides ideal support for vines such as wisteria, trumpet vine, kiwi or cross vine. This type of fence — shorter with a wide top — would exclude deer if the lattice were continuous. Deer do not usually jump wide, so two shorter fences four feet apart (or one fence with a wide top) should keep them out.

Find More Ideas: 36 Backyard Pergola and Gazebo Design Ideas

Let Vines Climb Your Wood Fence

Embrace wood fences at different heights to cradle your yard and garden with the perfect amount of privacy. A taller fence topped with lattice acts as a privacy fence along the busy street side of a backyard, while a shorter picket fence section works well on the less-traveled alley side. Soften a wooden privacy fence by topping it with a lattice fence section or smothering it with a vine, such as a climbing rose, moonflower vine or star jasmine.

Find More Ideas: 15 Perennial Vines

Customize a Garden Gate

Give a picket fence signature style with curves and stately pillars. Vinyl fence designs feature a variety of shapes and unusual features. Dress up your garden gate with an oversize pot brimming with flowers. This larger-than-life container hosts a Flower Carpet Coral rose, perennial coral bells (Heuchera) and a bronze-colored sedge (Carex buchananii).

Find More Ideas: 30 Whimsical Container Gardens Made on the Cheap

Try a Sustainable Wire Fence

You might not consider wire fencing as a great choice for a garden fence, but when paired with gabion pillars, it offers a sturdy, inexpensive option. By planting vines along the wire sections, you create a living privacy fence that’s eye-catching and — if you plant things like peas, beans, melons or cucumbers — edible. With gabion construction, add a layer of glass pebbles for a spot of color.

Add Some Asian Influence

Lattice fence panels can provide protection from deer and offer a bit of privacy without restricting views. This fence design features Asian inspiration by topping latticework with open space and crosspieces. You could adapt this look using bamboo poles and crosspieces to create customized bamboo fencing. This fence style also functions effectively as a deer fence, thanks to its increased height.

Learn More: How to Design an Asian Garden

Keep It Easy Breezy

Whether it’s keeping pests out of your garden or simply keeping pets and oh-so-curious children in the backyard, wood frames filled with an open-weave wire, that allows for easy air movement, is the way to go. When properly installed, wood and wire fencing is just as sturdy as a standard wood privacy fence and lends a charming, cottage look to your property. Want to DIY your own? Get all our tips in the video, below.

Watch the Video: How to Install a Custom Hog Wire Fence

From: Odd Job Landscaping

Mix It Up

Using a variety of fence materials is a great way to create distinct rooms in your yard. In this little but lush landscape, lattice panels wall off the upper garden from the outdoor dining space. A horizontal privacy fence encloses the seating area, so morning coffee and alfresco meals don’t include neighborly views. The horizontal planks also make the outdoor space seem larger, which means it's a great choice for a small yard. Vines scampering on latticework also help form a living screen.

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Put Your Fence Front + Center

Are you a front yard vegetable and herb gardener? And you’re looking for a stylish way to frame that garden? You’ve found it. This charming cottage turns heads with its crisp-white, X-style enclosure and adjoining rose-dripped cedar arbor. Crank up your curb appeal; install a similar, low-profile fence along your front lawn perimeter and mark your walkway with a custom arbor in a contrasting color or material.

Find More Ideas: 14 Most Romantic Garden Arbors

From: Living Gardens Landscape Design

Take a DIY Approach

Are you feeling nauseous over the estimates your local fence contractors gave you? We’ve been there, but we come bearing good news: You can install your picket garden fence for a fraction of the price yourself. All you need to make it happen is a few weekends to spare, some carpentry tools and our step-by-step tutorial, linked below.

Get the How-To: How to Build a Picket Fence

Build It Brick by Brick

Swap wood and metal enclosures for a stately brick garden wall a la this well-appointed backyard. The enduring, opaque structure is ideal for cultivating different zones throughout your garden or outdoor space. Better still? A brick partition provides a handsome backdrop for your potted plants, climbing blooms and cozy iron benches.

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From: Southern Walker Landscape Design

Take It Down to the Wire

Wire fencing can be just as sophisticated as brick, wood and stone when used with intention. Case in point: the wood and grid-wire fence wrapped around this dreamy desert garden. Expansive rectangular wood fence frames are inlaid with a neat grid wire to provide a tailored border for this texture-rich garden. The wire contains the organic setting without obscuring the bounty of blooms, native grasses and wispy stems from view while on the garden path.

Get the How-To: How to Reinforce Fence Posts

From: Kiesel Design

Turn to Stone

Bring the English countryside to your backyard with stone garden enclosures similar to this tailored trio. Stone walls lend a polished and enduring quality to a garden and, at lower heights, provide seamless outdoor seating. Leave your stone fence bare to show off the natural color and texture, or use it as an anchor for creeping ivy and climbing blooms.

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From: LaGuardia Design Group

Cover Your Fence in Blooms

Breathe some life into your existing privacy fence by installing a vertical garden. Use this cheery display as your blueprint and install four rows of vibrant potted posies and cascading plants along an otherwise bare corner of your lot. This addition will bring a burst of color to your garden while creating a natural focal point for taking family photos and entertaining guests.

Find More Ideas: Vertical Gardening Ideas

Or, Build a Living Wall

Skip the containers altogether and opt for a contemporary living wall privacy fence instead. While vertical gardens typically involve flowerboxes or integrated planters, a living wall appears to be a solid, organic backdrop made from textural grasses, air plants and succulents. Build a lush living wall for your garden using our step-by-step guide, linked below.

Learn More: How to Create a Living Wall

From: Mom's Design Build

Soften Your Surroundings

If you think your stone or brick garden fence feels clunky and dense against your lush garden blooms, we have just the solution for you. All you need to soften those rugged fence materials are fast-growing vines. Evergreen beauties like climbing fig or star jasmine are phenomenal choices for wrapping your partitions in an emerald blanket year-round.

Learn More: 18 Valuable Vines to Plant in Your Garden

From: Greenwood King Properties and Luxury Portfolio International®

Find Your Niche

Run, don’t walk! Add this photo to your garden fence inspiration board, stat. This charming wall features three integrated niches for displaying vibrant potted posies throughout the year. Employ the same technique when constructing your stone or brick garden fence, or consider installing floating shelves on your wooden privacy fence.

Find More Ideas: Container Gardening Design Guide

From: Carolina Landscape

Play Up Your Pergola

Transform your pergola into your garden centerpiece by installing a picket fence between its existing posts. This charming Georgian home provides ample inspiration with its vine-wrapped pergola finished with whimsical scalloped pickets and an inviting garden gate door. A border flower bed spilling with snapdragons, verbena and potted topiaries adds vibrancy to the display.

See More of This Home: Tour a Whimsical Georgia Garden

32 Gorgeous Garden Fence + Gate Ideas

Related To:

Shop This Look

Pick Your Picket

Consider Luxurious Lattice

Add Industrious Appeal

Install Privacy and Pest Control

Play "Defence" Against Deer + Rabbits

Weave a Wattle Fence

Work With Upcycled Materials

Add an Enchanting Entry

Go Gabion

Bring On the Romance

Implement Cottage Style

Go With Wrought Iron Elegance

Top It Off With an Arbor

Put Your Money Where It Has the Biggest Payoff

Go With a Traditional Deer Fence

Top It Off With a Pergola Fence

Let Vines Climb Your Wood Fence

Customize a Garden Gate

Try a Sustainable Wire Fence

Add Some Asian Influence

Keep It Easy Breezy

Mix It Up

Put Your Fence Front + Center

Take a DIY Approach

Build It Brick by Brick

Take It Down to the Wire

Turn to Stone

Cover Your Fence in Blooms

Or, Build a Living Wall

Soften Your Surroundings

Find Your Niche

Play Up Your Pergola

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