Unique ways to garden: Recycle tires & raised beds
By JOAN CROTHERS

Another set of raised beds in a yard on a sloped yard in Nanahala Bay in Hiawassee. Make them all vegetables, all flowers, or half and half. Much less weeding.

Here's a great way to do recycling for the environment and have a very different look to your flower beds and vegetable gardens.

Tires can be stacked to hold up a bank in your yard and then grow flowers or vegetables in them and on top of them. Stack them up as high as needed in an alternating design and fill them with clay, dirt or sand. The middle of the tire will need a big rock or tile to keep the dirt from going through. This will take some work as each tire take about a wheelbarrow full of dirt, but these tires will last longer than any wood-railroad ties included-and what a wonderful way to recycle tires.

If you have the tires facing south they will hold the winter sun's heat and allow pansies and other winter flowers to think they are in a warmer zone.

Raised beds are a neater and easier way to go, especially in a small or sloped yard. Use landscape timbers stacked and nailed together, putting small gravel or pearock in between. Be creative and surprise your neighbors-and yourself.

Bob Hicks on Sunnyside built this "tire retaining wall" in 1992 and says it looks as good as new, except the railroad ties need to be replaced. His smaller raised beds are seen in the lower left of the bottom photo.