The Wall, Part 2 Upper Planter Box

View from Neighbors Driveway entrance (Rob and Kent)

 Welcome back!  Thanks for visiting.

This post is oriented to another part of completion.  This post is from a couple driveways uphill of us, and shows our steep driveway which is, to come extent, the impetus for this years project.

In this first photo you can't see any of the wall construction around our casa.  You can see the house, the stair along side it; and perhaps gain some of the perspective about WHY we wanted the UPPER PLANTER BOX.

Vew from next drive down (Callie and John)

Driving further down to Callie and John's driveway entrance, you can see where, technically, our drive begins. 

Going downhill the length of this drive is a retaining wall which provides stability for Callie and Johns land, and our land, and land above our house.  This is one long continuous wall.  It runs from their meter box post, down hill and across the back of our house.  And this wall is where the water control, extended upper retining wall, etc starts. 

J Wall now Stepped for final build

When you double click on the second photo to enlarge it, you can see the block work that is nearly at the level of the finished planter box in the last photo.  From up the drive, you can imagine the improvement to privacy that will result from planting a shock of bamboo in that upper and outer planter box. 

Upper planter Box Finished

This third photo shows how we've revised the J Wall, into three steps.  The lowest one is the height of the inside planter (lowest step, right side of photo).  The middle one is really to ensure a smoother transition when we build a wall on top of this blockwork, to create the INSIDE courtyard.    We were thinking that courtyard would be finished in 2012.  But our crew is not large, and projects in our community are legion.  So unfortunately, beyond all this foundation work, completion won't happen until 2013.  Still, plenty more work to accomplish this year at Casa Torrente De Agua.  

In this final photo, you can see the upper planter box structure completed.  That flat concrete along the drive will be broken up and put in the bottom of that box for drainage, and it will be filled close to the top with soil.  Then we'll plant bamboo.  The driveway along the "J Wall" will be finished with blok zacate from driveway below which is being raised up, and which will be finished in gravel. 

The bamboo will grow quickly in this tropical climate; this is after all a tropical jungle.  And in about a year, that whole stair will be obsured by bamboo.  The box will contain the tendency of the bamboo to take up space, but we'll have some shoots over time to replant elsewhere. 

So like the extension of the upper retaining wall in a prior post, this is one more step towards completion.