Steel Flat Bar

Gerdau North America plans to raise steel rebar prices September 19

Gerdau Long Steel North America plans to raise transaction prices of steel reinforcing bar by $20/st for mill shipments starting September 19, according to a letter sent to customers Friday and seen by Platts on Monday.

Gerdau said "market conditions" drove the price increase, adding that it would "continue to monitor the market ... and reserve the right to make adjustments to maintain our competitive position across all Gerdau Long Steel product lines."

Gerdau last adjusted prices July 1. It originally proposed raising prices of rebar prices by $30/st but later revised that figure to $20/st, matching price hikes that competitors have announced. Transaction prices remained flat in August.

The current Platts price assessment for US-made No. 6 rebar remained steady Monday, selling in a range of $720-740/st ex-works Southeast mill.

Tampa, Florida-headquartered Gerdau is the second largest producer in North America of steel rebar, wire rod and other long products. Charlotte, North Carolina-based Nucor is larger.

--Noel DeKing, noel_deking@platts.

Ta Da!! ... The Official Unveiling of Bloomtown's Front Garden ...

Last fall, I began a comprehensive renovation, rejuvenation and overall heavy edit of  my front garden . I've been gardening on my 50 x 100 lot in NE Portland since 1998, so some of my initial plantings had run their course.  I removed several large shrubs to make some of the larger framework plants more "comfortable" and to make room for some fresh understory plantings.

But I'm particularly pleased with and excited to show you the hardscape additions I've made. These new hardscape features include a steel and stone retaining wall along the front of my garden and the addition of curvaceous raised beds made of steel flat bar woven in a sinuous, basket weave pattern.

I'd been enjoying working with steel in my client projects for some time, but hadn't yet landed on a way to incorporate some of my ideas into my garden at home. I believe that the combination of the steel with the basalt boulders really make this addition "work" within my existing garden. I've got a fair amount of existing stone and steel in my garden, so the union of these two materials make sense and ensure that the wall and the raised beds in the parking strip feel like a part of the larger whole.

Deciding to pursue these changes was the result of a combination of forces.  Believe it or not, it started with the decision to change the way that I water my garden ... but alas, that’s a topic for another post. All that I’ll say about that part of the decision at this juncture is that I decided that I needed a wall or edge of some sort that would prevent water from immediately running off the slope and onto the sidewalk. And one thing led to another.

Additionally, some of the primary structural plantings in my garden had developed some heft and were ready to do more of the heavy-lifting in terms of holding the overall garden structure together. In particular: two Japanese maples ( Acer palmatum  'Sentinalis' that were planted in the early stages of the garden's development and which are now quite established.