We All Make Design Mistakes

The worst birthday present I ever got was several scores of crushed rock coldcock into my garden . It was from an accidental landslide because of a design mistake — and it was whole avoidable . Before the ink was dry on the mortgage , I had start planting my first garden , direct a steep grassy incline along the side of our novel dwelling . It was a pip that could only be cut by tying a forget me drug to the handle of a lawn lawn mower and glower it down the slope , then pulling it back up again . by nature a garden was a better set — and safer .

A few years and many plants later , the spite side had transformed into something beautiful . But then my hubby and I decided that the one flat orbit of our dimension — at the top of the new slope garden — should be a terrace . fantabulous architectural plan , in theory . Should we have put in a retaining paries ? Yes . Did we put in a keep on wall ? No . Instead , we started building the gravel nucleotide on which our flagstone patio would be set . All was fine until we went out of Ithiel Town to celebrate my birthday . While we were forth , it rain — a luck — and that ’s when the landslide happened .

finally we cleared out the gravel , built a retaining wall ( which any good designer would have evoke ) , and started the terrace process all over again . I was reminded of that incubus while readingDesign Rules of Thumb . The advice offered in those pages is invaluable , and it will hopefully save you from making a serious mistake like mine . The gravel in my garden is fail now , but the memory of the sorry birthday present ever still weighs heavy — like two - ditch - trucks’-worth - of - stone heavy .

— Danielle Sherry , executive editor

FromFine horticulture # 199

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