EASY STEPS TO RUSTIC SLEEPER SCULPTURES

Gather your supplies

• Recycled hardwood sleepers (2)

• Recycled bricks

• Bricktor reinforcing mesh

• Plants, including groundcovers and epiphytes, such as baby’s tears, pratia, bromeliad and tillandsia

You’ll also need

Round-end shovel; spirit level; quick-set concrete; bagged crusher dust; set out paint; brickie’s sand; general-purpose cement; wheelbarrow; trowel; drill; spade bit; clear silicone; caulking gun

Here’s how

STEP 1 Clear the garden bed of any weeds or debris.

STEP 2 Using shovel, dig hole for the first sleeper 400mm deep. Dig second hole 350mm away, and 300mm deeper.

STEP 3 Sit sleepers in holes and use spirit level to make plumb. Set in position with quick-set concrete.

STEP 4 Put down crusher dust around sleepers and roughly level to create a bed 40mm thick.

STEP 5 Lay bricks around sleepers in an aesthetic way, leaving random gaps for groundcover plants.

STEP 6 Use set out paint to mark a straight line for garden bed edging and dig a narrow, shallow trench along this line.

STEP 7 Blend sand and cement in wheelbarrow in a ratio of 4:1. Add water and mix to make a reasonably stiff mortar. Use trowel to lay a bit of mortar in trench, then push in mesh, and add more mortar. Lay bricks in mortar so they’re level, following edging line.

STEP 8 Drill holes in side of sleepers at downward angle with spade bit.

STEP 9 Move bromeliads from pots to holes, using some of their potting mix.

STEP 10 Apply silicone to tillandsia roots and attach to crevices in sleepers.

STEP 11 Fill gaps in bricks around sleepers with soil you’ve already dug up and plant groundcovers like pratia and baby’s tears.

STEP 12 Put in plants around sleeper sculptures and in the garden bed, such as walking iris, Blechnum ‘Silver Lady’, bird’s nest fern, philodendron and homalomena.

STEP 13 Water plants in the ground and on sleepers.

FOR PROJECT SUPPLIES, SEE OUR STOCKISTS PAGE

STEP 5

STEP 9

STEP 3

STEP 7

STEP 8

STEP 2