New life for old concrete - using discarded concrete in garden structures

Sunset, Sept, 1996 by Lauren Bonar Swezey

These California designers reused discarded concrete for handsome paths, patios, and garden steps

Concrete, in its plain, gray form, lacks the quiet beauty of flagstone or slate. Even so, it is attaining new status in the garden as designers discover attractive ways to recycle it.

Break up an old concrete patio or walk-way into sections resembling stones and you have fine material for a path, garden steps, or even chunky benches. How you use it is limited only by your imagination.

PATHS AND POOL EDGES

San Francisco landscape architect Richard William Wogisch doesn't believe in dumping old concrete. "It just doesn't make sense to haul out manmade material from a garden and then mine the countryside to bring in natural stone. It's not very environmentally sensitive." Instead of sending the old concrete patio in Bob and Lois Franco's San Mateo garden to the landfill, he found a new home for it as a path and steps (shown above).

The broken-concrete path solved several design challenges. In the long, narrow garden, the path meanders casually, helping to create the illusion of a larger garden. And the irregularity of the broken concrete and gravel underfoot slows down the Francos' two very rambunctious dogs, who used to race through the garden and trample plants.

Wogisch isn't afraid to experiment with broken concrete. In one of his recent projects in San Jose, he found that the recycled material made a useful natural-looking border between a wood deck and a pond. "If concrete is used well, it looks rich," says Wogisch. "People respond to it, often without knowing what it is."

STEPPINGSTONES AND PATIOS

Tom Chakas and Roger Raiche put old concrete to use in their garden in several clever ways - as steps on a hillside, in a rusty-hued patio, and as "architectural remnants" around the garden.

Their fascination with concrete was triggered when Chakas discovered a discarded piece of broken sidewalk and brought it back to their garden. "I've always felt one should use local stone, not import it from Connecticut or other faraway places," says Chakas. "I consider concrete the local stone of Berkeley."

Concrete is particularly appealing to Raiche because of its history. "Each piece is imbued with a story - they're reincarnations from other cement existences. Using it adds to the narrative of the garden."

Chakas and Raiche soon' discovered concrete treasures all over Berkeley: where old driveways and patios had been torn up and the concrete tossed aside (homeowners were always thrilled to have someone haul it away, if asked first), and at a building materials recycler.

Not all concrete is alike; it varies in thickness, density, and texture. For steppingstones, Chakas prefers "something substantial, 7 to 8 inches thick, and as square as possible." But for terracing, he looks for interesting shapes that suggest architectural remnants or natural stone.

Chakas likes concrete's natural gray color; he says it mimics the limestone of southern Europe. But Raiche prefers to stain his concrete with iron sulfate - a yellow-white powder you sprinkle or sponge onto moistened concrete and let dry slowly - to make it look old. (Watch out when applying iron sulfate, though: It stains everything it touches, including clothing and hands. And it should never touch plants; it can kill them. After applying it and before planting near it, thoroughly wash any residue from the concrete, and make sure that the residue leaches through the soil.)

"The rust color reminds me of some of the strange orange-red soils in the [Sierra] foothills," Raiche says. And on the concrete patio he calls his "rust patio" - on a hillside behind the house - it provides a wonderful background for some of his favorite foliage colors: yellow, chartreuse, gold, and lime green (shown above).