My experience with vinyl fence is that it looks great for about 6 months. Then it starts to turn green and you have to pressure wash it every year. However, I'm in New England where humidity and rain are frequent occurences - probably not an issue in So Cal :)

I love wood b/c I love the way it ages. Ant the fact that if my wood fence gets damaged in 5 years I can get new wood the same size to fix it. After a couple years, it will look similar to the old wood. I'm not sure if vinyl fence parts will continue to be available and you can't really rip some vinyl down to the right width to fix a fence.

My last concern with vinyl is that it often gets brittle after it's been in the sun for a couple years. So if your yard (or your neighbor's yard) has kids who play ball, a vinyl fence will likely be chipped or have some chunks banged out of it over time.

On the plus side - termites & ants do not like Vinyl. If you want a white fence (not a wood fence that ages to gray/silver over time) then vinyl is a lot less work than wood. Pressure washing once a year is easier than scraping and painting every 4 years.

Good luck!

My personal opinion? If I'm gardening in the real world, I want a real wood fence, not fake vinyl, naturally coloured with stain, not paint. Furthermore, I would build it new rather than throw good money after bad by repairing something that isn't meeting your needs even now - sounds too much like false economy. If your new fence lasts 20 years like this one has, and your share of the cost of construction is $2695, that's less than $135/year. And I would try and see if I could re-purpose the good wood taken from the old fence, maybe as trellising for the top of your other new garden patio structure.