Capping a wall ?

[Rick Hughes]

Did post this last month ... no responses, so trying again.

Needs some ideas.

Have built some large raised beds in garden .... intent is to clad the outside in wood to match external building cladding.

taking wall of 100mm wide plus some vertical batten of at least 38 mm then the cladding .... I have around 160mm finished 'wall thickness

Need to have a top 'capping to cover this .............. so looking for ideas on what to use.

I could use wood, in which case I would overlap outside edge and fit a 20 x

20 horizontal nosing under the leading edge, making the capping in effect 'hockey stick' section,. The nosing providing overlap to cladding would look neater.

This means top piece of wood comes in around ...225 wide .... now decking is not wide enough, and if I put plain sawn timber may not look to good. One thought was to rip some decking down centre and biscuit joint the 1/2 width to full width piece ..... I'm assuming decking width is 140mm ... that would only give me ~205 ... can you get wider decking planks ?

I did think (but nor for long) about concrete 'hogs back' capping .... but as this will need occasional stepping on to get at 'garden' not ideal as they would probably come loose. (plus quantity required would be expensive)

So looking for ideas on a durable & decorative capping.

[Andy Cap]

If you don't like red, this isn't going to work ;-)

I used, what I think are called Spanish tiles. They are 210mm wide so would probably need cutting. I secured them with waterproof tile adhesive and they have coped with all normal gardening activity. I also have them around my pond, which gets walked around too.

C

[spamlet]

Your drawing, of ship-lap sides and wood on the top looks fine to me. Ship-lap also makes nice 'window boxes' or other planters. And I have also used it, with stakes, for 'terracing' a narrow, but steeply sloping, bed beside steps.

I would not bother with anything fancy on top. Rough sawn timber will look just fine once you have 'creosoted' it to match the ship-lap. Get them to cut it the right size at the timber yard. If your beds are rectangular I would try and make it a single piece of wood for each side, as, when I tried this with a curving wall and had to make a series of angled ended smaller strips, it proved difficult to keep them anchored when stood on. The wall was as much made to use up old bricks that I had dug up, as anything, and they were all different types and sizes so the top surface was far from even and level, but it still looked all right, and the rough sawn timber is actually quite comfortable to sit or kneel on while you are weeding.

S

[Rick Hughes]

The wall

[Rick Hughes]

are these clay ? ... or a concrete copy ? are they plain 'backed', and you just bedded them on tile adhesive ? .............. is that tile grout as well between them ?

[Andy Cap]

They're concrete and relatively flat backed...

used grey to stick them and red to grout them. Both came in 10kg bags IIRC.