Iam thinking of putting a 2' tall garden stone retaining wall in my back yard. Probably for 15' long, approximately 1/3 of the backyard width. My backyard is higher than the front yard. Iam in a rolling slope. And thinking of filling this with whatever good and cheap and make it look like a patio or flower bed or a water fall.
Any good site on the web to improve my imagination, and make it a possiblility? I would like to get more suggestions and what will be a good plan to improve the property value and turn something sore to the eye into beautiful. My thinking is to DIY a granite stone wall with no mortar, but wife is afraid of snake and other creatures making it a home.
There are many good books on landscaping and garden structures at bookstores and home improvement centers. You might browse some of them for ideas. I think the snake thing is irrational. If you don't have snakes now, I doubt that they will be a problem in the future. Of course most snakes are harmless to people and beneficial in controlling rodents and insect pests.
There are morterless retaining wall blocks of various sizes and colors available at home improvement centers. You can look here:
hmmmm... you could use a recessed morter technique to have the dry stack look without earth access for critters to tuck in. (depending on the depth of the hole they might still hunker down in the wall.)
lining the soil side of the wall with heavy duty lanscaping fabric/diamond mesh might accomplish the same thing.
I've done several of those and found them very satisfying. In my case I used the natural stones lying around, of which I had many. Never had a problem with snakes living in them (but then here in Eastern Ontario snakes aren't very scary) but rodents do find them handy.
You can help to stabilize them by spreading them out on the ground before installation and spending some time eyeballing them for a good fit. It takes a while but you can come up with impressive results without mortar.
Yes, the DRY STONE WALL, no mortar, is quite a wonderful thing. a book which shows actual pictures of how these walls are built, (each face of the wall slopes to the center---hard to describe, easy to diagram) would be the way to go. Mortar is comparatively recent in this scheme of things; HUGE structures were made without it.
You mean - like pyramids?? I've climbed over some of the oldest known pyramids down in central Mexico, and it'd be more than I'd want to tackle in a week. ;-)
I was not suggesting Stonehenge or Easter Island stone heads; nor had the idea of concrete blocks, half or whole-assed, even enter'd my mnd! i was just encouraging the lad to build a dry stone wall! i was not even referencing those charming stone beehives one finds all over Eire!
Snakes and wasps can be a problem unless the joints between the stones are extremely tight. Dressing granite to get that close a fit would be a huge task.
I've used stacking bricks & ritzier stackable stones to create garden barriers & in one long spot a cliff wall where was formerly a slope. They never shift, they do exactly what they're supposed to without being cemented in. A neighbor made a major earth-retaining wall out of stacking-bricks about head-high, & this seems pretty stable too, despite the unusual height, but when I looked at it I had to admit it looked tacky. It looked like some amateur with no finer option stacked some blocks bought at Lowe's or Home Depot. He'd even installed one of those black moulded fish ponds, looked about as natural as some kids' plastic wading pool. All the guy needed to complete the effect would be some plastic flowers stuck in the cracks of the wall, & a chorus line of garden-trolls around the pond.
you know, i was with you until here... and i emphatically maintain that there is nothing wrong with a troll who has a lifestyle choice of being a dancer... ;)
years ago, in the '30's one of my aunts had a lot down from a gravel road that went VERY STEEPLY down to a creek. this was in Missouri near ST Louis and the property sprouted rocks like the garden sprouts radishes. each rain brought more up. she patiently gathered them each day as weather and time permited and built a rock, morterless wall about 2 feet wide at the top across the front of the property to protect it from water from the road, then down the north side going down the very step hill. i loved it.. have loved it in my memories for years but when i visited the place in about 1984 new owners, had torn it all down saying that it had become rat infested.. i think i would have done something about the rats.. not the wall! it had been there about 40 years with no breaks. lee h
For the rats, you need a couple of Patterdale Terriers! tiny dogs, as hard as a baseball, and devoted to rooting out and murdering vermin. POISON FREE rat control..However, i have a feeling the disposessed rats will find somewhere else, having lived in Boston, a city famous for waterfront rats larger than a medium sized cat. I LOVE the story about your AUNT!
Are you using existing rocks from your yard or are you purchasing stone? A dry laid stone wall is much much harder to do than you think, especially if it is your first one. Whatever stone you have, you need to lay them out on the ground and "sort" them. Think of it as a giant 3-D jigsaw puzzle. The yard will look like a disaster zone before you lay your first rock. Depending on the type of stone you use, you will need more than is actually in the wall because some of the stones just don't fit anywhere. This is assuming you are trying to get a tighter fit with somewhat flat faces, as opposed to a farmer's rubble wall.
Using some of your old large plastic garden pots, throw the useless or smaller rocks into them. At certain points when building your wall, you'll need filler in the middle. Just grab a bucket full of these rocks and pour it in and work them into any larger voids.
The wall should be at least as wide (at the base) as it is tall. As far as tools, a rock hammer, handheld sledge and a cold chisel (don't forget the safety glasses) and lots of gloves (you'll wear them out real fast). You'll eventually figure out where the seams in a granite rock are.
Here's one safety tip I learned the hard way... you see the perfect rock but it's toward the bottom of the pile or wedged in with some other rocks. DON'T try to just pull it out and save time. Spend the extra minute to take the other rocks away from it. One small slip and you'll have a smashed finger or hand and you won't be working on your wall for a while.
-al sung Rapid Realm Technology, Inc. Hopkinton, MA (Zone 6a)
But without mortar, old walls were built with carefully dressed stones. The joints were so perfect, not even a knife blade could be inserted. And the walls were quite thick since only gravity kept them from falling.
If you are planning a RETAINING wall (as you said), think very carefully. This is a wall to keep the slope from failing, from sliding down. You will need deep footings, and it will have to be anchored into the slope. This is the kind of wall that often uses hollow blocks treaded on steal bars imbedded into the foundation. After the blocks are stacked, the hollows are filled with concrete.
If you are planning a slough wall, however, the advice in other replies is quite good. A slough wall prevents slough (of course), which is the trickling down of loose soil and surface erosion.
If you want to build a wall adjacent to a slope and then fill in behind the wall to create a terrace, you will need something between a retaining wall and a slough wall. Wet soil on a slope can create significant pressure against whatever is holding it in place. Such a wall needs to be reinforced. However, if the fill behind it does not extend higher than the top of the wall, you might not need to anchor the wall into the slope. Such a wall should slant towards the slope and not be vertical.
curious..wondering if the wall could have been sort of "caulked" with cement? perhaps holes/spaces daubed in with mud then cement...??? it would be cruel to the vermin in the wall, but they couldn't spread out in the neighborhood. :<
or introduce a few king snakes??? oh welllllll...too late now!!! lee h
that IS one kind of mortarless construction, but the USA is full of dry stone walls made of local harvested ROCKS, which were cheap, being free for the taking, and then selected to fit together with a minimum of dressing with tools. they are very rustic, or, some might say, crude, but they look very natural in the landscape, and really, aside from the labour, (which is good for a person) they are not that difficult to make. some folks consider them very important as regards historic structures in the USA. and we have an accounting here of a Missouri stone wall put together over time by a person's Auntie! who was not represented as a stone mason.
However, my reply was to a rference to a message that claimed: "Mortar is comparatively recent in this scheme of things; HUGE structures were made without it." [Original writer's emphasis on "HUGE", not mine.] Yes, boundary walls are often made without mortar or precise dressing. However, I cannot picture someone's auntie bulding the Great Wall of China without at least dressed stones. And remember what is the subject of this thread.
gardens.. but then walls are a part of many gardens... no, aunt ethyl was not a stone mason, just a stubborn little lady who worked in a shoe factory, was raising 6 children at the time and wanted 'something better' and worked her but off trying to create it. and she made the best danged gooseberry pie you could ever imagine. and, bless her heart, she couldn't afford morter! ....but..she had a LOT of rocks! and i might add.. balls!! garbonzos! even if she was a lady. may she rest in peace.. : ) lee h
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