There is something sinister about a landscape of rusted metal: a corroded car off the highway, a forgotten Midwestern town, or a decaying seaport. Borrowed from the designs of landscape architects, here are 10 genius garden hacks using rusted metal (Cor-Ten steel included).
Photograph by Dan Farrar courtesy of Groves-Raines Architects
In Edinburgh, Scotland, architects Groves-Raines used traditional Scottish willow weaving techniques to create a rusty barrier around a custom composting shed from A New World Composting Shed in Edinburgh.
Woven Fence
Entry Gate
A rusted gate on the side of landscape architect Christine Ten Eyck‘s own house in Austin, Texas.
Photograph by Matthew Williams for Gardenista.
Photograph by Matthew Williams for Gardenista.
Another gate at Ten Eyck‘s Austin house.
A Cor-Ten steel slot fountain in a San Mateo, California garden designed by Growsgreen Landscape Design.
Sculptural Interest
A circular rusty metal sculpture on the side of a garden path by landscape designer Anthony Paul from A Glamorous Black and White Cottage Garden.
Architects Piercy & Company designed a perforated steel fence to let light into a brick-paved courtyard and to visually connect the two gabled wings of a house built behind the facade of a Victorian stables in London.
Matching Facade & Fence
Photograph via The Modern House.
A rusted iron walkway by Hugo Bugg at the Chelsea Flower Show in London.
Permeable Pathway
Photograph by Kendra Wilson.
Planter Box
Designer Julie Farris created a Cor-Ten steel box overflowing with Korean boxwood for a New York City garden.
Photograph by Matthew Williams courtesy of Julie Farris.
Retaining Wall
Photograph by Eric Piasecki courtesy of Nelson Byrd Woltz.
Cor-Ten steel forms a garden’s walls and stairs and mint, chives, chard, and tomatoes fill discreet stepped beds in a contemporary landscape in Connecticut designed by Thomas Woltz of Nelson Byrd Woltz. For more, see The Landscape Designer Is In: Playing Matchmaker Between a House and its Site.
Landscape Edging
Photograph by Matthew Williams courtesy of Julie Farris.
Designer Julie Farris created a “simple and strong’ design for a townhouse garden with rusted metal edging in Before & After: From “Fishbowl” Garden to Private Oasis in Manhattan.
A simple rusted metal fire pit is at Glen Oaks Cabin in Big Sur, California.
Fire Pit
Blue fescues line a Cor-Ten steel fence.
Curb Appeal
Photograph courtesy of Huettl Landscape Architecture.