Gardens come in all shapes and sizes – and there is more to shape than length and width. If you look at a beautiful landscape, it is unlikely to be completely flat. The world is full of hills and valleys, mountains and canyons, and Australia has plenty of that variety too, from the Hunter Valley to the Snowy Mountains. Why should your garden be any different?
If your current patch is a little unimaginative, a bit characterless, introducing a raised feature or two can give it life and interest, and all you need to do is make sure it remains a safe place even as it becomes more voluptuous.
Perhaps surprisingly in the garden context, concrete, and particularly concrete landscaping sleepers, can be the material that makes this possible.
These are big slabs of stability. Once you’ve laid one it will sit there quietly as the years roll by, doing nothing but keep things safe. Bear with us while we present some concrete sleeper ideas.
Concrete is thought to have been invented thousands of years ago, albeit not in its current form, but like many an idea that was pioneered by ancient civilisations, it didn’t maintain its popularity. What did the Romans ever do for us? Plenty, it’s just that we didn’t capitalise on certain things, and concrete was one of them. They used it in the Colosseum and in the channels and water-carrying bridges known as aqueducts.
So, 19th and 20th century humankind reinvented that wheel – and added contemporary advantages such as churning concrete lorries to transport and pour it, plus steel reinforcement to make it even stronger.
How to Build a Concrete Sleeper Retaining Wall
Sleepers started life on railway tracks, their job being to provide an unshakeable base on which the rails would sit, perfectly flat, while trains thundered overhead. Never was there a simpler task to accomplish, provided the material had the natural attributes, and concrete has those attributes in spades. It is heavy. It is easy to shape into quiet, symmetrical shapes.
Once the concrete industry really got its act together in the 20th century, it soon became the preferred option for sleepers, which until that time had been made of timber. And okay, timber did a good job, but against the odds. As charming as wood is, it is vulnerable to decay. It can rot, split and warp. It doesn’t respond well to constant moisture from rainfall. It doesn’t like extreme heat, either. Concrete, on the other hand, doesn’t bat an eyelid at the weather. It is the ultimate trouper: Mr Reliable.
When gardeners, and particularly landscape gardeners with their bigger tracts of land and greater licence to thrill, recognised the potential of concrete sleepers, it was a game-changer. Gradually the advantages have filtered down to domestic gardens and now the possibilities are endless.
The concrete sleeper retaining wall is a feature that can enable you to transform a garden. You can raise a bed, making it easier to work on. Suddenly you can have vegetables and herbs at pickable height. You can create a long hedge of lavender or roses, easily accessible for trimming or pruning. All these things and many more become possible through the sheer intractability of concrete sleepers.
There are rules to be followed here, though, and Standards Australia have a special one: AS4678. With so much weight to cope with, these walls have to be approved by the authorities, but from the customer’s point of view, this isn’t a problem as long as they choose their contractor carefully. These specialists will have enormously powerful machinery to bring and install the concrete sleepers, along with skilled workers to make sure it is all done properly.
Concrete Sleeper Ideas Involving Water
Nothing brings peace and tranquillity to a garden like a water feature, and with the right expert help you can have one on your property. It might be a goldfish pond, in which case you could be digging out rather than building up, but a sound base and perimeter are requirements all the same. Concrete won’t be bothered by the presence of water and will make sure your garden doesn’t get waterlogged as a side-effect.
How about a little waterfall? These can be hypnotic, even on a small scale, but of course you will have to make sure the wall that the water cascades over is absolutely solid and won’t deteriorate and eventually collapse. Concrete sleepers are the materials for the job. This kind of thing is not merely a matter of obeying rules and regulations: it’s about being a responsible individual who wants everyone to be able to enjoy the garden and your own mini Ladies Bath Falls. Do it properly, though, and it’s a lot of fun.
One step up from the pond could be a swimming pool, and here you will have to take professional advice in order to do it safely and end up with an amenity you and your family and friends can enjoy. Whether your pool is elevated or sunk into the garden, you’re going to need the muscle of concrete to ensure stability.
Less dramatically, a garden can be given an injection of visual appeal by building some steps. There is no limit to the height you can create if you have concrete sleepers creating a strong enough retaining wall, so you can have several levels if you wish, with attractive steps taking the visitor down from a lawn to a rose garden and on to a vegetable patch. The layout is entirely your choice, but if you need some ideas, take a look at the sort of work the Australian concrete firm Realcrete has done in the past.
This will also show you how attractive concrete can be these days. You can have a woodgrain finish in colours rejoicing in names like lava, peppercorn and slate, bluestone and quartz. Gone are the Henry Ford days of any colour you like as long as it’s grey. Old Henry would have approved of the option of black, though. It’s one of nature’s colours and can add a distinguished tone to your outside area.
Miscellaneous Ideas Using Concrete Sleepers
Where does your garden start and finish? Does it just peter out and turn into yard or driveway? Concrete sleepers can give it a final flourish, a good, solid, attractive border that is as individual as you want it to be.
Fencing is another option, and concrete is an increasingly popular material for this. The posts are an obvious choice, especially given the finishes and colours available now, but the actual fencing, the horizontal planks or uprights, can also be made of concrete and blend in perfectly with the overall look of your place.
The same can be said of raised troughs or planters. Use concrete for the whole job or just to create the base, on which you can put a stone cattle trough you found somewhere. The world is full of random items if you keep your eyes open. Anyone who enjoys trawling through second-hand stores looking for interesting items and bargains can apply that to their little part of the great outdoors.
On the subject of mixing and matching, if you want to use concrete as the basis for your garden’s strength, there is nothing to stop you using wood or stone for decoration, and tiles can add all sorts of atmospheric touches. You can have all the solidity of the modern age with a touch of Roman or Greek opulence on top. Make yourself a sort of French farmyard or a Mediterranean courtyard. The only limit is your imagination.
