Railroad Materials Suppliers Help You With Railroad Tie Landscaping Ideas

A railroad tie, sleeper, or crosstie is a versatile, beautiful item to utilize in landscaping, with multitudes of applications limited only by the imagination. Used railroad ties are delightfully affordable as landscaping products. They are priced according to how many "good" sides they have, between one and four. They are marketed by the piece in shorter than nine-foot lengths and by the foot in nine to seventeen foot sizes, all at very reasonable costs by railroad materials salvage businesses.

I would think that second-hand railroad ties have been in landscaping and gardening use ever since the original leftover railroad tie. The raw and natural beauty of them can improve any project. They can be applied as strictly decorative accents, as components of function, or as some combination of the both of them. They can be readily combined with other types of landscaping materials or kept separate in creating myriads of designs, textures, and patterns that, once again, are only limited by one's imagination.

One of the most common, and perfect, landscape uses for railroad ties is probably that of building retaining walls. Railroad ties are big and heavy enough that they aren't likely to go anywhere after they're in place. They're able to hold however much dirt is needed to be held. Railroad ties can easily be arranged in many different configurations, including singly as a low horizontal retaining wall; multiples on top of each other in offset layers; ties stood up on their ends to look like yard dividers or fences in varying heights, even heights, or alternating heights and stood together, apart, straight, angled, or in curving lines. One more typical use for railroad ties is in making raised flower beds. These can be made on top of any surface, with single or stacked ties, going up a terraced incline or hill, or following curved path lines by being cut into shorter lengths.

Railroad ties make beautiful stairs of all types: stairs up to front doors, with wrought-iron handrails; up to decks; up winding hillsides; and bordered by all kinds of retaining walls, raised beds, or fences. Ties look great as patio and deck edging and as patios and decks-in patterns of all kinds, including circular. Ties make gorgeous stepping stones, placed in groups in complicated patterns, even circular, or placed individually with stepping spaces between them.

There are multitudes of other landscaping uses for railroad ties: garden and park benches, bridges, handrails, tables with benches, hammock poles, raised tree planters, benches suspended between tree planters, pavilions, gazebos, trellises and arbors, pond edges that are ground-level or raised, soft-foam play-area edging, sandpit edging, outdoor swings, cabin foundations, tree houses, barns, sculptures, fireplace mantels, and household furniture. People have long been enjoying the wonders of railroad-tie landscaping. Maybe it's your prime time to bring along your imagination and your ideas to swap at your local railroad materials suppliers.