Last summer, I received a call from Dick Bodman and his wife Hongyuan-Lang to look at a unique project. Dick and Hongyuan live in a beautiful home out by the Cannon Valley wilderness Area in a home built in 2002 by Northfield Construction Company.

Dick and Hongyuan had a large mound of soil left over (left photo, click to enlarge) from the construction of their home, and instead of wasting the soil, they wanted to put it to good use.

Hongyuan had seen some hillside gardens and terracing when she and Dick went to China, so she knew she wanted a series of elevated gardens, with retaining walls and a step system involved. There was already some fieldstone on the site, so we decided to use those in combination with some timbers, similar to another wall we built in the back of the house. (Right photo: John Larson and Matt Grove working on the boulder wall.)

I think the combination of wood and stone that Hongyuan chose created a great look for her wall system (left). The use of the boulders and the wood makes it much more interesting and brings this 6′ terracing system in to scale very nicely. The boulders do a nice job of visually “holding” the system to the ground.

I give Hongyuan a lot of the credit for how this project turned out. She had a vision for what she wanted and was able to communicate it to me during the construction process.

We also added several watering spigots (right) to make it easier to get water to the different terraces without Hongyuan having to drag a lot of heavy hose where she wanted it.

I’ll post an update on the completed project later this spring.