Abundance in Creativity
Reuse of Materials
These are examples of using materials from on site.
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A small "farm" in the hills with lots of resources on site
For more images from this project, please visit the Design and Installation section.
The back of the house has a French drain around it. The clients wanted to have a ditch around the house with mortar pieces from the pile of brick rubble in it, and rocks on top of that.
These bricks came off the facade of the house, and an old barbecue fireplace in the yard. The cleaned off bricks supply the path through the yard and the shade patio under the Camellia.
This is the pile of concrete and mortar rubble used to fill in the drainage around the house. Beyond the pile of reused and potential materials is the triangular patio under the arbor that will get redone with the same stones but in a way that they don't sink into the soil, and allow lots of weeds to grow.
These are the mortar pieces used to provide drainage around the house and to keep soil away from the foundation and house.
The black rocks that cover the mortar pieces came from another client who doesn't like them in his garden. The brick pieces from the pile
We started with concrete pieces, "urbanite"from my neighbor, and bricks that were still held together with mortar as the basis for the retaining wall and then added rocks from American Soil and Stone, and Acapulco Rock and Soil.
The wall is finished, with half round pieces of concrete from the rubble we used as stairs from the future shade patio below to the higher level.
These steps are made from more of the rubble pile with historical words written on them, see the close up in the next photo.
Don't know what the date is on this but it's old!! And looks cool as a step to the compost area and vege garden.
A future to-be-used-again water feature for the wildlife, a very important part of caring for our earth friends.
A great source of free mulch is from a tree company after they shred the smaller debris from their pruning.
Reusing patio stones
This client wanted to add stones to her decomposed granite patio. I found these square gray slate-like stones under her deck. By using this pile of stones, it added art to her patio, and tidied up under the deck. Yes, that's a bronze statue of a horse! What art do you want in your garden?
More of the gray square stones off-setting this place of repose in the corner of this client's patio.
A patio of another client that was unusable, weedy, and an eyesore
Using the stones that were there and adding more of a similar kind, grading the area, laying decomposed granite, then replacing the stones brought order and beauty to the site
Before
After
The entrance to the patio.
A new parking space and resources for the rest of the property
This client wanted to create a parking space at the top of their property to accommodate grandsons and visitors' cars. The rocks were next to the street. We moved rocks and soil to other parts of the yard and brought drain rock leftover from a renovation on their house to line the new parking space.
More drain rock to be used for the parking space. Saves money all around.
We added to this garden bed the Mugo pine, Lorapetalum and beautiful rocks that came from the new parking space.
The bare dirt to the right is from the parking space area at the road. This will become planting areas (lilies have been moved here from where a deck is being put in), as well as a relief from nuisance grasses that caused weeds around the yard and had to be line-trimmed a number of times during the summer and fall to prevent fire.
This bed was created where an old stump had left a huge depression. The rocks and soil came from the new parking space at the road. The iris and lilies were moved from other areas that were disturbed by the new construction on the house.
Permaculture Site at Merritt College, Oakland
The willow branches that make up the growing bed, the sink functioning as a planter, the mulched path fromchipped prunings from the site, the wall in the background is urbanite, broken up concrete, and most likely the hut is made of soil from the site mixed with other materials to create the adobe effect, and the manzanita branch and other wood holding up the roof from tree trunks. This is the Permaculture site at Merritt College in Oakland. See the link to read more on Permaculture practices and philosophies.
The Red Fescue lawn at the Permaculture site. Another example of an urbanite wall, reused concrete, save money from taking it to the dump (it’s heavy! Costs a lot to throw away), save money from buying rocks that are trucked, dug out of hillsides, and hauled by people-power which costs money. Save, save, save!!!
More of this beautiful, comfortable lawn.
From mess to order
The backside of their BBQ was overgrown, not desired bushes.
Reconstructed lattice painted and used as a trellis on the back side of the BBQ.
