Gardening and Landscaping

What the Heck Is a Ha-Ha, and How Can It Help Your Earth?

Having trouble with animals straying into your backyard? The 18th-century English gentry had the ideal answer to protecting their manicured yards by marauding sheep or cows — the sunken ditch, or ha-ha. The ha-ha — named for the surprise that a person got on suddenly coming across it — had one sloping side and a stone- or – brick-faced wall; at a more basic structure, a fence is hidden at the bottom of a deep trench.

One of those ha-ha’s best benefits is allowing an uninterrupted view from the backyard while not sacrificing safety — something a lot people search for in our gardens, even when we don’t own grazing stock. The creativity of modern garden designers today gives us additional methods of creating a permeable barrier within our gardens, offering similar advantages to this ha-ha.

Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design LLC

Here we see probably the nearest thing in a modern garden to the traditional ha-ha.

The wall here plays the traditional job of dividing the formal sections of the backyard yet allowing views into the wilder, scenic surrounds.

Robert Young Architects

Perhaps this instance isn’t a genuine ha-ha; most would consider it a wall. However, it will give us a good idea how the authentic ha-ha works; from the lower side, the wall ceates a secure barrier unseen from the open garden above.

To install any feature like this is labour intensive and costly, yet it will last indefinitely if it’s well maintained, and it can also dramatically change the landscape.

Aaron G. Edwards Landscape Architect

The ha-ha does not need to be just a pragmatic feature. The gorgeous stone wall here will make a superb ha-ha: It is practical in construction, fits into the landscape and is an excellent feature in its own right.

Early examples of this ha-ha at 18th-century England didn’t contain partitions, but consisted only of a deep ditch with a fence hidden at the bottom — simple yet quite effective.

Tim Davies Landscaping

In the modern garden, stone and brickwork aren’t always the most acceptable construction materials for producing retaining walls. This Cor-Ten steel has been used to make a cost-effective barrier.

Blasen Landscape Architecture

Perhaps the most realistic modern descendant of this authentic ha-ha is your infinity-edge pool: a swimming pool or reflecting pool that gives the effect of extending to the horizon with no interrupting barrier. The best site for an infinity-edge pool is about a side of a mountain where land falls away.

AMS Landscape Design Studios, Inc..

This sundeck also does not have any advantage and is, I guess, a near relation of this infinity-edge pool. As the majority of us live our lives within liberty — both the walls of our houses and workplaces — the production of outside spaces without these visual obstacles can be important to our well-being.

This is something we take from three centuries ago, when people English estate owners desired to be a part of the landscape. Landscape gardeners such as Capability Brown introduced the concept of this landscape sweeping up into the house, along with the ha-ha allowed them to acheive it.

Banyon Tree Design Studio

Barriers, particularly internal obstacles, in modern garden design don’t have to be impermeable. There are various times once we would like to delineate an area without obstructing the view through to the rest of the garden or landscape.

Grasses with tall flowering spikes are best for producing this type of soft obstacle.

The rustic palisade fencing within this minimalist courtyard design firmly divides the top area of the backyard from the reduced, but in addition, it allows a view via and is an interesting feature in its own right.

Archer & Buchanan Architecture, Ltd..

This sepentine Cor-Ten steel fence without uncertainty has its ancestry from the ha-ha. The gaps between the uprights let enough view through from one side to the other while creating a secure barrier. The serpentine shape also allows for distinct viewpoints as somebody goes within the backyard.

Dale Jones-Evans Pty Ltd Architecture

Exactly the same idea in the previous photo is used here, except using a semitransparent material to boost visibility without sacrificing safety.

Though we have come a long way by the simple method of sinking a fence at a ditch to provide an invisible barrier, modern garden designers are still using the same idea — transparency with safety to provide the ideal backyard barrier.

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