If your Millis, MA, area landscape needs a retaining wall, do you know what materials would be best to build it? Your landscape contractor can guide on the available choices for retaining walls, but you may want to have some ideas ahead of time.
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Retaining Wall Functions
A retaining wall can serve several purposes in a landscape, and the materials used can influence the structural integrity and wall appearance. For one, a retaining wall can hold back the earth of a slope in your landscape. The purpose of designing and constructing a retaining wall can be to stop erosion in your front yard or backyard when rain storms come and the water rushes down the hill. Along the way, the water can wash away the grass you planted, a landscape bed, and leave mud and debris everywhere for you to clean up.
Another use for a retaining wall can be to define specific areas of the landscape and to add intimacy and privacy to an outdoor space like a patio.
Retaining Wall Materials
Landscape boulders: The retaining wall stone type can depend on the wall function. A retaining wall that holds back soil can be natural landscape boulders that can give a rustic, earthy appearance to the wall. These landscape boulders can be ideal for forming the edges of a water feature like a pond. They also lend an exceptional appearance to a retaining wall that follows a walkway along the woods, tying the natural elements into a cohesive whole.
Natural landscape boulders bring a physical and visual weight to the landscape that no other stone can. Their massive size can create a spot that draws the eye and wows the senses.
Landscape boulder walls don’t have a flat top surface since they are composed of large stone and the irregular top is part of the wall’s charm.
Wall stone: Wall stone is made to look like real stone, mimicking the textural surface and unique shapes. One of the advantages of wall stone can be the symmetry of the stone, making designing and building a retaining wall less labor intensive than landscape boulders.
Wall stone can compose the retaining wall that circles a patio for additional seating and increased privacy as well as holding back the heavy earth behind a slope. Wall stone is versatile and comes in many shapes, sizes, and colors to give you almost limitless options for designs, patterns, and borders on any retaining wall.
Tiers: Wall stone can be especially useful for a landscape professional to design a tiered retaining wall where the slope has two or three walls, giving the slope a visual and physical divide into sections. Within the sections, your landscaper can plant flowers on the closest level, a row of the same shrubs on the next level, and ornamental trees on the farthest section to add symmetry and variety to the landscape design.
Granite: Often, the wall top can be a flat stone that weathers well and adds more beauty to the wall. Granite can be ideal for the coping where you want to use it for additional seating or to place planters.
Retaining walls can be attractive and functional, solving erosion on your property and creating more privacy. They can bring definition to outdoor spaces that need a large structure to divide certain spaces. With a lovely design and contrasting banding, a retaining wall can be eye-catching, too.
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