Terracing & Landscaping With Railroad Ties

Use railroad ties to terrace and landscape your yard.

Railroad ties are a popular landscaping material due, to their inexpensive nature and weightiness. A railroad tie that is placed in the landscape will not move or shift easily, due to its sturdy composition, which was designed to bear the weight of train cars in motion. When landscaping with railroad ties, only select aged ties that are no longer laden with creosote. Creosote is a poisonous preservative used to treat railroad ties, and can soak into the soil and damage your landscaping.

Things You'll Need

• Wooden stakes
• Plastic landscaping fabric
• Rubber mallet
• String
• Garden hose
• Measuring pole
• Measuring tape
• Shovel
• Board
• Carpenter's level
• Railroad ties
• Three-fourths inch rebar stakes
• Three-fourths inch drill bit and drill
• Coarse sand
• Coarse gravel
• French drain pipe
• French drain pipe sleeve
• Top soil

Instructions

Terrace and Raised Bed Planning

1. Pound a stake into the ground at the top of your slope with a rubber mallet. Tie a piece of string to the stake.

2. Hold a tall measuring pole at the foot of the slope.

3. Pull the string outward and mark the point on the string and the measuring pole, where the two meet. The string's length from the stake to the pole is known as the 'run'. The length from the point where the string meets the pole to the point where the pole touches the ground is the 'rise'.

4. Divide the height of each terrace by the total rise to figure out how many terraces you will build. Divide the number of terraces by the run to determine each terrace's width. Beginning builders should not make their terraces more than one or two feet tall to avoid the pressure buildup of wet soil pushing behind the terrace walls.

5. Pound a stake into the ground at the end of each terrace wall location. Tie a string between the tops of each stake to mark the locations of the terrace walls.

6. Lay out a garden hose in the location of any raised beds you will be building. Mark these locations in spray paint and remove the garden hose. Your beds should not be wider than four feet, to make it easy for you to comfortably garden in them, without stepping inside the raised bed.

Hardscaping Construction

1. Dig out the soil to form trenches, which will be the foundations for your raised bed and terracing walls.

2. Check the floor of the trench foundations to ensure that they are level by placing a scrap board into the trench. Place a carpenter's level over the board. Continue to remove soil until the trenches are level. Set the soil aside to return it to the inside of the terrace walls or raised beds, later.

3. Cut lengths of three-fourths inch rebar, so that they will be twice as tall as your finished raised bed or terrace walls.

4. Place the first row of railroad ties flush with the floor of the trenches. Drill holes in the ties with a three-fourths inch drill bit and drill.

5. Pound your three-fourths inch rebar stakes into the ground, through the first row of railroad ties. The rebar stakes should be half-buried into the ground, to properly anchor the walls.

6. Lay your second row of railroad ties so that there is not a uniform seam between the ties. In other words, make sure the end of one tie is at the center of the tie immediately parallel to it. Drill corresponding holes so that the ties will slip over the rebar stakes easily, before you lay them.

7. Continue to lay rows of railroad ties until the walls of your terrace or raised bed reach the desired height.

8. Attach plastic landscaping fabric to the inside of the raised bed and the inner wall of the terraces, with carpenter's staples and a staple gun, to prevent creosote from leaking out of the railroad ties. In a raised bed, the plastic also will help keep out garden weeds or vermin, such as moles that may tunnel up from underground.

9. Fill in the bottom of the terrace against the wall with two inches of gravel. Top the gravel with two inches of coarse sand. Slip a French drain pipe into a drain pipe sleeve, and put it over the sand and gravel. Cover the drain pipe with sand. Then, cover the sand and French drain with soil, while filling in the rest of the raised bed or wall of the terrace with soil. The French drain acts to move water from a soggy area to a dry area, thus dispersing it evenly.

References

• University of Missouri Extension:Choosing Terrace Systems
• University of Missouri Extension: Raised Bed Gardening
• University of Florida IFAS Extension: Basic Principles of Landscape Design

Resources

• Washington State University Extension: Gardening on Steep Slopes