Building A Stacked Stone Retaining Wall
Rocks can be purchased at local landscape retail centers or can be collected from local creek beds.
Building a stacked stone retaining wall. Higher walls should be engineered for stability. The exact depth of the. Great for making inexpensive raised beds out of rocks. It s a matter of physics and good engineering that.
Building a dry stacked stone wall in your garden area is an easy way to incorporate dimension and architecture into the existing landscaping. Building a retaining wall is suitable for diyers as long as the wall is a maximum of 3 feet tall in most areas. For a stacked block retaining wall that s no higher than four feet a trench filled with three inches of crushed rock will help keep the wall from shifting and settling. Every three or four feet lay a tie back stone flat long and heavy to provide additional stability.
The easiest way to build a stone retaining wall is to use the dry stack method that requires no mortar between stones and does not need a concrete footing like mortared walls do. Any gaps will be filled with mortar. There is no need to build a foundation below the frost line because the loose stones can shift slightly to accommodate frost heave. There are two common methods of building retaining walls.
One with concrete and mortar and one without dry stacking. The ideal height for a dry stacked retaining wall is 18 to 22 inches so you can sit on it when your gardening chores are done. Anything taller should be handled by professionals. This is known as a gravity wall.
A stacked stone retaining wall relies on its own weight its setback leverage and the wall s mass to stand up. Start setting face stones those with a flat face between the corner stones. This makes them naturally draining which is important when using a wall to retain soil. With concrete less time is spent choosing the correct stones to lay without leaving large gaps.
Even if you don t plan to sit on your wall 3 feet is about as high as i would recommend building any dry stacked wall. Learn to build a simple dry stack retaining wall for the garden using natural field stone.