Landscaping - anyone seen this

Latest Articles

Landscaping - anyone seen this
Page Previous 1, 2, 3

Downsizer Forum Index -> Land Management

Author

Message

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45420
Location: Essex

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 07 11:08 am Post subject:
Had anotther couple of responses: From Germany: Was extensively used but no longer used as trees usually fail due to lack of moisture From NZ: Widely and successfully used, no moisture problems due to higher rainfall.

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42207
Location: North Devon

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 07 12:08 pm Post subject:
Should be OK for jonnyboy then.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45420
Location: Essex

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 07 12:10 pm Post subject:
Should be, some concerns were raised at the fact that they use imported radiata pine rather than local sitka

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 07 12:15 pm Post subject:
I've downloaded some of their plans, it's a bit naughty but I'm thinking of talking to a local sawmill about making it up. My FIL is a skilled woodworker so he could make templates or samples.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 07 12:19 pm Post subject:
Look in to the dry stone hedges (usually filled with earth and then ultimately they become great big green mounds) in the South West. I think that aiming to end up with one of those with the structure you're looking at there as a starting point is the way to go.

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 07 12:34 pm Post subject:

cab wrote:

Look in to the dry stone hedges (usually filled with earth and then ultimately they become great big green mounds) in the South West. I think that aiming to end up with one of those with the structure you're looking at there as a starting point is the way to go.

They aren't designed for lateral loads though are they?

Behemoth

Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 19023
Location: Leeds

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 07 12:54 pm Post subject:
Bocage. Stopped a tank.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 07 2:55 pm Post subject:

Jonnyboy wrote:

cab wrote:

They aren't designed for lateral loads though are they?

You might think not, but look over those hedges at the field on the other side. Might take years, but you end up with a field much higher than the road on the other side, so the load they're taking must be tremendous. I've seen some that are a good six feet and more higher on one side than the other.

Ultimately I think the structure you're looking at could end up like that, the difference being that you're starting out with timber supports because the structure has to bear that load from the outset - you could envisage that in, say 10 years it'll be a , hedged over bank with the stones visible and wooden struts sticking out whereas in 30 years time a lot of the wood will be rotted away, and you'll have a grassy, stony bank with hedge growing out of the top.

Behemoth

Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 19023
Location: Leeds

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 07 2:57 pm Post subject:
or is it the lane that sinks?

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42207
Location: North Devon

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 07 2:59 pm Post subject:
The bank gets trodden down by animals, so if it's between fields they stay level. You have to earth them back up every so often. (There's probably a special word for this, but being an immigrant I don't know it).

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45420
Location: Essex

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 07 7:13 pm Post subject:
Tahir, if you intend to dip your toe into the world of bank stabilisation a key source book is "Use of Vegetation in Civil Engineering" Coppin and Richards 1991. pub CIRIA/Butterworths ISBN 0-408-03849-7 Dozens of variants on the picture you post, mostly underpinned with exotic looking mathematical equations, and all, at bottom, thoroughly practice based.

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 07 12:38 pm Post subject:
Got a quote back, 2.5k for delivery only of the wood, thats' to make a 20m x 1m retaining wall. What a waste of time, I can do it with railway sleepers for around a third of the cost.

Welsh Girls Allotment

Joined: 30 Sep 2006
Posts: 237
Location: Sunny South Wales

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 07 1:18 pm Post subject:
We have lots of these in the valleys, as everything slopes up the valley sides, mostly they seem to be used for car parking areas at newly developed supermarkets, we also have a huge plataux (sorry minds gone blank I just can't remember how to spell it correctly !)created from this system and it has been there approx 7 years

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 07 1:21 pm Post subject:

Behemoth wrote:

or is it the lane that sinks?

Both. The level of the field rises if it is manured, farmlands do tend to rise... But either way those dry stone hedges end up supporting a hell of a load.

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 07 1:32 pm Post subject:

Soil mechanics.
Surely the lateral thrust is going to greatly depend on the soil characteristics? My expectation is that the lateral force is going to be high for things like clay that would tend to flow of their own accord, and that the force would be lower for self stable piles of rock... (hence gabions, etc) Of course it all gets more intense when one considers added loads on the raised ground, and the actions of water...

	Downsizer Forum Index -> Land Management	All times are GMT Page Previous 1, 2, 3
Page 3 of 3

View Latest Posts