How to Build a Dry Stack Stone Retaining Wall

Stone retaining walls can add an interesting design element to your landscape while serving a practical purpose as well. Preventing erosion or creating a spot for a flower bed are two possibilities. Dry stack rock or rubble stone walls add a great touch to a landscape, and building one is easy enough to tackle yourself.

Difficulty:

Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Rocks
• Earth for fill
• Shovels and tools

1. Lay out the wall area, shape and direction. Use a garden hose to draw the wall's shape if it is curved. Depending on whether your wall sits on a slope or flat surface, you may be cutting away a bank or building the wall and back filling as you go, to create a terrace effect.

2. Pull a string line across the length of the wall (about 8 inches off the ground level) to define the wall's front.

3. Dig a ditch the length of the wall. It should be a foot wide and 8 to 12 inches below the ground level. This ditch acts as the wall's footing; it will prevent the rocks from sliding forward due to pressure from the earth.

4. Stack the larger rocks in the ditch if the stones are different shapes and sizes. If they are symmetrical, start lining them next to each other in the ditch's bottom. Place the flat side facing forward, and slanted back about 8 degrees. The stones should just miss touching the string line, and be supported by dirt filled in behind it. Continue this down the length of the wall, with each large rock touching the one next to it.

5. Fill dirt behind the large rocks. Tap the earth firmly to set the rocks in place. Let the 8 degree slant hold the rock in place by gravity.

6. Find smaller rocks to fill in the spaces in between large rocks. They need to be a shape that fills the void between the large rocks. Pack tightly with dirt as with the other rocks, and maintain the 8 degree slant.

7. Add stones to the second layer, carefully placing to fill openings created by the varying shapes of the first layer's rocks. Add water to the fill as needed to help it settle.

8. Continue building layers until you reach the desired height.

9. Square off the top edge of the wall using flatter stones to give the wall an even, finished appearance.