How to Build Rock Walls for Landscaping

Enhance the look of your landscape with simple rock walls.

Adding rock walls to your landscaping enhances the look of your exterior spaces and serves as borders and natural containers for flower beds. Building a rock wall requires little skill but a bit of heavy lifting as you must pick up and position rocks repeatedly. Two methods of building rock walls exist to create permanent and temporary rock walls. Dry-stacking the rocks, without the use or mortar produces temporary rock walls that can withstand a lot of weather and erosion before eventually falling apart, and are much easier to move if you decide to dismantle the wall in the future.

Things You'll Need

• Spade
• Soil tamper
• Wheelbarrow
• Fine gravel
• Soil

Instructions

1. Choose a site for your rock walls. You may break up sloping landscape into small terraces with rock retaining walls or simply build rock walls against your home, driveway, patio or other landscaping elements to use as flower beds.

2. Excavate the rock wall site by first removing the soil and then removing an additional 2 to 3 inches of the soil. Do this to allow the first layer of rocks in the wall to sit below the ground surface and produce a sturdier wall. Pile the soil up nearby to replace inside the rock wall and use as the soil for flower beds if you use the rocks wall to create a garden space.

3. Tamp the soil down into the rock wall site. This helps prevent the rock wall from sinking in spots and falling apart. To tamp down the soil, pound the flat and broad end of the soil tamper against the ground repeatedly.

4. Collect rocks to place in your rock wall. Use a wheelbarrow to easily carry several rocks from a creek bed or the woods to your rock wall site. Collect mostly large, flat rocks that you can easily stack in the wall. You may also use small, round or irregular shaped rocks, though such rocks work best in mortar-built rock walls, as they easily fall loose from dry-stacked walls.

5. Set the first row of rocks into place across the entire length of the rock wall. Fill holes between rocks with fine gravel to create a solid surface for the next layer of rocks in the wall. Place the next layer of rocks and again fill holes with gravel. Repeat this process until you reach the final layer of the rock wall.

6. Replace the soil behind the rock wall and add more soil if you plan to use the enclosed area as a flower bed or raised garden. You may also leave the rock wall free standing as a separation between properties, yard and garden or to line a driveway or path.

References

• Ron Hazelton's HouseCalls: How to Build a Rock Wall Planter
• The Landscape Design Site: DIY Landscaping/Rock Garden Walls

Resources

• This Old House: Lots of Groundwork Goes into the Best Rock Walls