Very big boxes for hillside flowers, vegetables

Sunset, August, 1987

Very big boxes for hillside flowers, vegetables

Resembling giant steps, these elevatedplanters put flat planting areas along the side of a lot that slopes down and away from this house in hilly Portland. The modules (some 6 feet square, some 6 by 12) decline in height from 7 to 2 feet as they march down the hillside.

Planter walls are pressure-treated 6-by-6sstacked (and bolted) log-cabin style with intersecting ends alternately lapped. To break up the mass of the sides, 1-by-2s cover horizontal and vertical seams. Pairs of 1-by-4s cap the corners to further dress up the beefy structures, and 6-by-8s frame the top of each planter.

Design was by landscape architect JohnH. Herbst, Jr., of Lake Oswego, Oregon, for Dan Gleason and Wendy Ware.

Photo: On neighbor's side (above), planters serve as fence, stepping in and out, up and down. On house side (below), they lie low, put vegetable and flower gardens in easy reach