An Ingenious Use Of Broken Concrete
For An Awesome Driveway Or Garden Path

Artist and all-around-creative guy Tom Vanderzyl and his also very talented wife, artist Alice Bateman, are in the throes of building a brand new home in Texas. As happens with many folks, Tom and Alice looked for ways to help cut construction costs.

On top of that, they are also highly desirous of helping the environment by recycling materials whenever they can. They came up with the idea to utilize broken concrete that would otherwise end up in a landfill for their new driveway.

I think their use of huge slabs of broken concrete to pave their new road/driveway that leads to their home is an awesome recycling idea!

Environmental Benefits Of Recycling These Slabs

Here is a view of what the bare road up to Tom and Alice's new home looked like before the project began

And ... the workers starting to lay down the recycled broken concrete slabs. Look at the size of some of these chunks!
(I bet those guys backs sure hurt at the end of the day!!)

Tom added these comments when he sent me the photos:

"So interesting is the use of discarded chunks of cement turned upside down, so that the organic side is showing. A very rough ride for cars approaching our home, but very cool to look at and there will be no speeding down the drive!

It is "green". It is free! And it will be covered (has been) with earth and grass seeds. The earth will fill up the open areas and the grass will grow between the blocks of cement. We will not be stuck in the mud this winter! The work did cost us much more than we expected but with the free material it really fits right in.

Now for your gardens this may be cool as today they look for places to dump sidewalks and driveways that have to be removed for one reason or another.

Loads of broken up concrete is available for the asking. One day soon someone will be selling this (one man's trash) scrap material for it's chic look and "green" value."

Alice and her dog named "D.O.G."
checking out the progress of their eco-friendly installation!

In Tom's comments above, did you understand what he meant by "the organic side showing"?  If you are familiar with concrete that is poured for sidewalks, as example, the rocks and gravel that are part of the cement mixture tend to settle down to the bottom of the wet concrete (makes sense if you think about it).

As a matter of fact, that is why you see the top surface of sidewalks or driveways being smoothed off with a tool called a float. The top surface has to be smoothed, or else it would be very uneven and "rough".

But in this installation, Tom and Alice preferred the interesting texture of what amounts to what was the original underside of the concrete. As most concrete driveways and sidewalks are poured on top of dirt or sand, the gravel in the cement mix settles down into the soft dirt/sand, and so you get a very rough "under surface"

Thanks Tom for sharing your project.
It's a very ingenious and eco-friendly recycling idea!

To easily view ALL the garden art projects and how-tos I have on my website, please go to the Site Map and take a look. You might just find a few things that catch your eye.
Your garden will thank you! Site Map