recycling concrete
One of the easiest ways to reuse broken concrete is to stack up the pieces to make a low garden wall.
My house came with an expanse of dangerously uneven, cracked concrete that needed to be removed. One option would have been to haul it off to the landfill. But turning the scraps into this little wall for a raised vegetable garden ended up being a greener solution.
The hardest part was breaking up the concrete into manageable pieces. (We used a sledgehammer). And lifting the twenty to sixty pound chunks into place made for some hard work. But it was basically an “easy” job in that it wasn’t particularly technical and didn’t demand too many brain cells.
If your soil is especially unstable, the concrete could be set on top of a foundation. But for almost all soils, and for a low wall like this one–about twenty inches tall–don’t bother. Try to stagger the joints between pieces from row to row to make the wall more stable. Work to nest the pieces together as tightly as possible to minimize soil loss out the sides if you’ll be using the wall for a raised bed.
If you would like a softer look, you could also plant little succulents or compact rock-garden plants into the crevices. Creeping sedums, alyssum, low varieties of thyme or trailing strawberries would be good, easy choices for a wall that has a sunny exposure. You could also plant low-growing bulbs or annuals in front of the wall.
The result is definitely on the rustic end of the spectrum, more “cottage” than glam or glitzy. But you’ll feel better about not filling up the landfill. And in the end the project could be easier than loading the chunks into a truck to haul them away.
January 04 2009 10:26 am | Categories: gardening • landscape design • my garden | Tags: concrete • garden walls • hardscape • recycling • rock gardens
Lona on 04 Jan 2009 at 11:58 am #
I love the look and reusing the concrete is a very good idea and use of materials.
Karen - An Artists Garden on 04 Jan 2009 at 12:43 pm #
SO much better than carting it off to landfill.
Breaking concrete is such hard slog — well done you.
K
lostlandscape on 04 Jan 2009 at 6:56 pm #
Karen and Lona–Many thanks! It WAS a lot of work, but I feel much better about reusing materials that otherwise would have been wasted.
Helen/patientgardener on 05 Jan 2009 at 4:20 am #
Well done — whilst breaking the concrete up is hard work getting it to land fill is also hard. I think this is an excellent use of the concrete.
tina on 05 Jan 2009 at 7:45 pm #
I love broken concrete-mainly because it is free and does not rot and, like you said, does a great job of making a raised bed. Another use is to make a path or patio. I bury the chunks level with the grass and create a nice solid path. Lots of work but worth it not to sink in mud in the winter. When I lived in Alabama a swimming pool business owner collected broken concrete. He had plans of laying it in his parking lot then concreting between the chunks. It would’ve looked great but he never got around to it. I think it GREAT you recycled your concrete instead of hauling it off.
Philip on 06 Jan 2009 at 10:41 am #
Hi,
I also like the fringe of gravel. rock between the path and the wall. That really looks great.
What a project! That was a lot of hard work, but worth it!
best regards,
Philip
lostlandscape on 06 Jan 2009 at 9:19 pm #
Helen, yes it’s hard work. I’m not sure I’ll be up for another project like this for a while…
Tina, I really like the path idea. I think it’d be great interplanted with creeping thyme or other low plants. I think it’d be nice to know somelike a pool contractor who might actually be thrilled to give you all the wall-building material that you’d like!
Philip, the project has evolved over time. The gravel was the most recent addition. I think that now I can consider the project complete!
Thanks, everyone,
James