Post and Festoon Installations

Festoon needs something to hang from, and most gardens don't have two conveniently spaced trees. These are the posts and the wire as one job: three, five or eight posts carrying 20, 40 or 70 metres.

Four materials, and the choice is mostly about how you want it to age. Green oak silvers and is the most handsome in a traditional garden. Galvanised steel is the workhorse and disappears. Corten rusts deliberately to a deep orange-brown — handsome, but it stains what is underneath it, so keep it off pale paving. Painted softwood is the most affordable and the one that needs repainting.

Posts want setting properly: a third of their length in the ground, concreted, with the end runs braced because that is where the catenary tension pulls. Turnbuckles let you re-tension it each spring, which you will need to do.