So pleased with our tyre (tire) wall experiment
We decided to continue the re-cycle, re-use, reduce philosophy of our Camp Site and experimented with the use of old tyres ("tires" for our US members :-) to create/repair terrace walls. We were worried at first - they just looked very ugly - but by Mid summer they were a blaze of colour and almost completely hidden. I have tried uploading some before and after pictures to the group but they are awaiting moderation.
If anyone is similarly inspired then post to this thread and I'll share some construction tips we learnt along the way.
I have also built tyre walls both as retaining walls and as a vertical wall around an orchid house. The tyres had 4 bolts joining them to adjoining tyres and holes drilled into the lower rims to allow for drainage then planted orchids and bromiliads. this looked very effective.
Hi, did you simply stack the tyres to create the retaining wall or use half tyres, which takes some hard work in cutting them
That's spooky, this thread gets re-activated on the day that we began planting up our tyre wall for what must be the third year running. It's still standing and level and the soil quality is much improved since that first year. So how did we do it?
No cutting or bolting together they're just stacked on top of each other, each tyre in one layer bridges the two below it, much as you would lay bricks. Our soil is very heavy clay, so as I filled each tyre, I rammed the soil into the tyre rim with a club hammer. Once constructed and ready for planting, the soil in the center of each tyre was loosened again and mixed with planting compost.
To maintain the level and offset symmetry of each layer you really need to use tyres that have the same tread width and diameter. All this information is on the side of the tyre. Those weird number combinations on the side of your include the tread width and diameter (or radius I can't remember now) so if you're rummaging through a pile of scrapped tyres you can easily pull out the ones you want. Volkswagen Golf's are really popular here so I went for that size of
tyre as I knew it would be the most abundant of the old tyres available.
If you're building a wall that will get full sun you might want to paint the tyres in a light colour. Even when they were in full flower and largely covered by foliage they got really hot so keeping them watered was a nightmare. In our case we used left over exterior masonry paint. The dirty cream colour paint we got given matched the natural stone walls quite well so the whole thing looked better too .... in our opinion :-)
I've got a few more pictures of the construction here and how they looked when painted here
In short ramming the earth into the rims is ball breaking and maintaining the level across a long run is "tyre"some (groan) but they do look a picture every year.
Give it a try!
Thanks for all that info. Much appreciated and will be taking it into account in longer term planning.
It has me thinking of some application for privacy screening also.when you get a chance would be interested as to which orchids you find work best in the orchid wall
cheers
The orchids on site are all native wild orchids. Bee orchids, early spider orchids late flowering purple orchids to name those we can identify. They're tiny but beautiful and appear in our grassy camping areas with a host of other wild meadow flowers about this time of year. The tyre wall we plant with typical cottage summer garden plants. e.g. Sunflowers, Cosmos, Cinnia, Petunia, Lobelia, Nicotiana, Pansies, Marigolds, Mesembryanthemums. All great for attracting bees butterflies and moths.
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