mending wall
I don’t mind many garden chores—watering, pruning, tidying, planting—but other tasks are so unpleasant I can put them off for days or years. Dealing with hardscape is one of those unpleasantries, particularly when it’s laborious maintenance and not a crative act. And that was the story of much of the last two weekends.
My neighborhood dates to the very early 1950s, and it was the first in San Diego where a developer cut and filled a hillside to install a subdivision. Some lots—particularly on the fill side of the street—are flat from the front curb to the back fence. But many others—and mine is one of them—slope emphatically. I haven’t hired a surveyor to scope it out, but I’ve figured that the front and back of the property differ something over twelve feet in elevation over 120 linear feet. An additional slope behind the house elevates the folks behind us another six to eight feet.
In Mending Wall Robert Frost dealt with the arbitrary social spaces that some walls define. But without the series of little retaining walls on my lot the walls serve to keep some of gravity’s effects in check the whole hillside would end up on top of the neighbors down below.
Unfortunately, one of those walls had been listing considerably, partly with the help of a nasty pencil tree euphorbia and some errant ivy roots. My solution: Why not try using the hydraulic and bumper jacks that we’ve had sitting in the garage to see if we couldn’t get the wall to standing back at 90 degrees? Then it’d be a pretty simple matter to pour concrete at the base of either side of the wall to stabilize it for the next quarter-century.
All jacked up
Bumper jack
It’s common to call someone a jack of all trades (no pun intended), and it’s usually meant as a compliment. But my work on this project made me think of the “…and master of none” part of the phrase that most people don’t think about. Yes, I did manage to get the wall back to upright. Yes I did manage to do it with the jacks. And yes, pouring concrete around the base of the wall has kept it firmly upright.
But I did however end up having to replace a small section of the wall, and that’s where the master of none part comes into play. You will notice I have no photographs of that patched wall. Trust me. It’s ugly.
Since no one will believe anything these days until they’ve seen a photograph of it, however, maybe you won’t realize how ugly the patch really is and continue to think that I’m this resourceful gardener who’ll tackle anything and do it with spectacular results.
If you’ll believe that, let me give you a cutting of this cute little pencil tree euphorbia that’s guaranteed to stay a cute little well-mannered plant…
August 19 2008 04:04 am | Categories: landscape design • my garden | Tags: hardscape • Robert Frost • walls
Barbee' on 19 Aug 2008 at 12:49 pm #
At least you got it done, and I think using those tools from the garage was a good idea. My husband says my solution to everything is a plant, soooo, plant something in front of the ugly part. Or on top and let it trail down to distract the eye. I bet other people won’t notice it as much as you do.
lostlandscape on 19 Aug 2008 at 6:56 pm #
Yes, right in front of the repair is exactly where I’ll be placing one of the next plants! A well-placed plant can hide a multitude of projects gone bad…
Greg on 20 Aug 2008 at 9:00 pm #
Ah, yes…there is a plant solution for every problem! Congratulations on getting the wall upright again (it might be my continuing monitor troubles, but the wall in the bumper jack photo looks more like a wooden fence. How long would that hold the hillside back?), even if visual concerns remain.
You could always paint a mural on it before planting in front of it. Maybe some pastoral scene with some nice yellow flowers…
; )
lostlandscape on 22 Aug 2008 at 3:54 pm #
Yah, it’s a wooden fence in the picture, but it had already done its job by that point and was hanging out against the wood fence when the news cameras arrived. I’ll take your yellow floral mural suggestion under advisement but I’m not sure if Vinnie Van Gogh is free to paint it.
Greg on 24 Aug 2008 at 7:56 am #
Ahhh…would you be more accepting of a yellow flower mural on the garden wall if he was available?