Re: New Japanese Garden WIP
Posted: December 1st, 2020, 6:07 pm
Bit of a short update today as work has been temporarily put on hold while the retaining wall guys are busy doing their thing
Not exactly cheap...but finally i'll be able to start landscaping the area nearest the house without having to worry about the old rotten sleeper retaining wall collapsing under me!
A slightly unforeseen issue has emerged however in the corner of the wall near where the stairs are going in...I've kept the path to a pretty consistent width the whole way through the garden but when the guys put the new wall in they had to come back a little further than where the old wall was as it'd leaned outwards over time giving a false sense of space.....
Luckily the spacing between the corner and the nearest large rocks bordering the path is still juuuuuuuust within the right tolerances, but as it stands right now, it feels like a very narrow pass with a very sheer and potentially dangerous drop if you were to lose your balance. Visually it also doesnt seem right as there's not enough space to put another rock on the path side of the wall's corner to create a naturalistic appearance.
SO!
My current favourite solution is to get a very large rock to fit into the corner of the wall, spanning the full height from the lower paved area to above the wall to a similar height as the surrounding rocks either side of it. I'm planning on using a combination of demo saws, jack hammers and feathers and wedges to cut/split several right angle sections out of the rock so that it can fit tightly into the corner of the wall as well as overhang the wall at the top to completely hide the corner joint, hopefully giving the appearance that the rock was already there and that the wall was built around it.
Aesthetically, having a very large rock in the foreground should also have the added bonus of fooling the eye into thinking that the rocks in the background are much larger than they actually are.
I'll see how it feels once its in, but it may also need to have a narrow and visually unobtrusive low rail installed in that area too, just to reduce the chances of falling off the side...buuuuut that'll be a hurdle a ways down the track
At this point the only issue i can foresee is handling the rock from the driveway over to the area its planned for...still not exactly certain on how that'll go, but i was contemplating a thick sheet of mdf and more than a few 50mm pvc pipe rollers to move it across the paved area a little easier....
Anyways, thats all for now.
Hopefully i'll have some more updates to share soon!
Cheers!
Not exactly cheap...but finally i'll be able to start landscaping the area nearest the house without having to worry about the old rotten sleeper retaining wall collapsing under me!
A slightly unforeseen issue has emerged however in the corner of the wall near where the stairs are going in...I've kept the path to a pretty consistent width the whole way through the garden but when the guys put the new wall in they had to come back a little further than where the old wall was as it'd leaned outwards over time giving a false sense of space.....
Luckily the spacing between the corner and the nearest large rocks bordering the path is still juuuuuuuust within the right tolerances, but as it stands right now, it feels like a very narrow pass with a very sheer and potentially dangerous drop if you were to lose your balance. Visually it also doesnt seem right as there's not enough space to put another rock on the path side of the wall's corner to create a naturalistic appearance.
SO!
My current favourite solution is to get a very large rock to fit into the corner of the wall, spanning the full height from the lower paved area to above the wall to a similar height as the surrounding rocks either side of it. I'm planning on using a combination of demo saws, jack hammers and feathers and wedges to cut/split several right angle sections out of the rock so that it can fit tightly into the corner of the wall as well as overhang the wall at the top to completely hide the corner joint, hopefully giving the appearance that the rock was already there and that the wall was built around it.
Aesthetically, having a very large rock in the foreground should also have the added bonus of fooling the eye into thinking that the rocks in the background are much larger than they actually are.
I'll see how it feels once its in, but it may also need to have a narrow and visually unobtrusive low rail installed in that area too, just to reduce the chances of falling off the side...buuuuut that'll be a hurdle a ways down the track
At this point the only issue i can foresee is handling the rock from the driveway over to the area its planned for...still not exactly certain on how that'll go, but i was contemplating a thick sheet of mdf and more than a few 50mm pvc pipe rollers to move it across the paved area a little easier....
Anyways, thats all for now.
Hopefully i'll have some more updates to share soon!
Cheers!