Suspect sleepers...

Old railway sleepers can be reclaimed for garden use, but there are caveats, says Kya deLongchamps

Railway sleepers hold a special place in my heart, as my Nevada grandmother Sweetie lived all her adult life in a house made entirely from massive, reclaimed railway timers locked together, their surface pitted with a century of boring by sandy footed beetles. Those woody walls were so heavily insulated and the house so well placed in the desert environment it was one of the few in town that didn’t require air conditioning, simply an open front and back door for the wind to twist through.

Sleepers were made originally from the toughest woods, oak, and treated pine reigning supreme here in Ireland. These and other oily dense hardwoods like azobe, beech, jarra, and karri were used to support the rail networks throughout Europe and the rest of the world, and every year hundreds of thousands of sleepers are made redundant by line changes, upgrades, and closures. They would appear to be a supreme candidate for recycling as landscaping treasures, and up to 10 years ago the market was flooded with this robust, relatively cheap material, a darling for rustic-styled horticulturists and edgy contemporary designers alike.