Steel Walled Garden Update – A Sweet Upcycle

Steel Walled Garden Update – A sweet surprise from Lodi. I’m really proud of our L shaped garden that wraps around the North and West sides of our home beside our front step. Unfortunately it is slowly rotting away and collapsing. I’ve transplanted many of my Grandma’s perennials here and been so thrilled that they’ve been doing well. Case and point: the stunning tiger lilies and her hydrangea bush. The lilies of the valley have finally filled the North side of the bed and my adorable little Virginia blue bell just gets bigger every year and I would be pretty damned devastated if I lost any of them.

This has been something I’ve really worked on and loved all the seven years I’ve lived here so its something Lodi knows means a lot to me.

We aren’t yet to the point of: EMERGENCY WE NEED TO FIX IT NOW!

But we are definitely to the point of: WOW THAT LOOKS BAD!

As for me I would have ignored it until it was time to go nuclear but I think Lodi wanted to do something to cheer me up as we had just made the decision to take down the barn.

So he went to the barn and salvaged some of the corrugated steel off the back of it just for this project, just for me.

He still asked to make sure it was OK with me and updated me throughout the day as he covered it up.

He cut the steel with our angle grinder and used the old nail holes to keep the old look as much as possible.

I think it was really sweet of him and love how it turned out!

As far as the “plan” on how to fix it well we’re still working on that. I don’t want to have to take out all of my perennials and then replant them as that really does feel like starting over… but I fear its just going to collapse if we start removing the old railroad ties.

We may be able to do a little at a time working our way down replacing the railroad ties with concrete block (or something).

Or, maybe I’m overthinking this and the fact that’s been here for years means the dirt will be impacted enough that, as long as we’re careful, it may just “stand up” for us as we do the fixing.

Not sure yet but Lodi definitely improved the eye sore that it was and I really appreciated the steel upcycled from the barn!

We also had the boards he used for the top of the wall so, essentially, it was also a free project.

I’m never using wood outside ever again lol.

I didn’t mourn one minute of my old garden getting torn out with the barn and am really looking forward to replacing it with steel, block, concrete or vinyl of some kind!