My contractor Chris Gilliam found a place locally where he was allowed to pick over the concrete (free!) that had been dropped off for recycling. He brought a trailer-load today, and started construction of the broken concrete wall that will support the bed that's along the street. It was another cold day today, although not as cold as last night and the night before, when temps got down close to 10F. There was a dusting of snow on everything this morning as well, but it melted, as the temps warmed back up to above freezing.
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| Varying sizes and shapes |
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| Some nice exposed aggregate |
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| An interesting variety, including a couple of colored pieces |
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| Red! |
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| Taken from an upstairs window |
Inspiration for the recycled broken concrete wall came from several different pins on Pinterest. Check them out
here,
here and
here. Also
here.
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| They are making a handful of these planting pockets. |
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| View from the living room window |
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| One day's progress |
We got a dump truck-load of topsoil today too, which will cover the small grass circle, as well as be used to amend the very sandy, rocky soil in the beds.
Have you seen any projects that used broken concrete for retaining
walls? It's also called urbanite. One of the first broken concrete walls
I ever saw was my own mother-in-law's in England, built by her handy
husband. I'm not sure where they got the broken concrete they used for their garden walls so many years ago, but it's very fitting to their personalities that even their broken concrete is tidy.
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| Nigel's dad working in the garden |
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| Broken concrete walls when they were new |
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| Nigel's mum having a hoe-down |
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| Broken concrete aged (taken June 2005) |
