The Bergen Record/1984/Paper Protection

by The Bergen Record

Paper protection

By Regina Gross
Editorial Assistant
It is not known who first said, "Necessity is the mother of invention." But it is known that Sally Norton successfully applied the saying to correct the flooding problem at her Paramus home. Every time it rained, the water from a neighbor's yard washed down an incline on Ms. Norton's property, eroding precious top soil and nutrients. And if the showers persisted, plantings were often uprooted and killed. Frustrated and upset by the problem, Ms. Norton turned to newspapers but not the want ads - for help. She built a four-foot-high retaining wall of folded newspapers that now absorbs the water before it floods her yard. "I don't know how I got the idea," she says. "I was desperate. Where are you going to get enough stones to build a wall? I am 63 years old, and it is not easy to carry stones. But you can carry newspapers and build a wall." A conservationist who composts vegetables, leaves, branches, and grass clippings, Ms. Norton started building the wall four years ago. Patiently collecting newspapers, she folded them width-wise into narrow bands and laid them on top of each other. After three summers the wall stretched 75 feet, the width of her property. When it rained, the black ink ran over the papers. And when they dried out, the sheets had cemented together. So, unknowingly, the gardener created the look of dark rocks. The stacks do compact over time, she says, so when building a newspaper retaining wall, make it taller than you ultimately need. "The newspapers have not deteriorated at all," she says. "Back a ways my son was trying to change some of the newspapers for me. He couldn't even get a shovel through, they are so packed together." On the top of the hill, forsythia that were dying from the poor soil conditions now flourish, their roots having grown into the newspaper where they are kept moist. About 100 azaleas, initially planted down the hillside to try to retain the water, are also ringed with newspapers. Fingerlike projections of myrtle spread over the stacked papers, enhancing the look of natural landscaping. "It is not the usual yard. I tried to create something like you are going out into the woods, with a path up the hill and a path across the whole 75 feet," she says. "It is just fabulous what you can do with newspapers. You can shape it, round it, and twist it any way you want. And it doesn't cost anything to save the newspapers. This is the great part about it.".