Garden Retaining Wall

I built a low garden-edging retaining wall next to the vegetable garden and chicken hutch around some orange trees growing in the back yard. I like to have a low wall separating lawn from a garden, since it makes it much easier to keep the lawn out of the garden.

The base of the wall is hand-mixed and poured concrete – I broke up some old kerbing and placed it in the footer trench to save myself having to pour so much concrete. The plastic pots you can see in the photo below were there to make holes in the concrete so that water could go through to the soil below.

Next I laid all the brickwork on top of the footing – I made two step-like sections that were actually little mini garden beds (the holes from the plastic pots were beneath these to allow drainage.)

Lastly I rendered the whole thing (I’m pretty sick of rendering, it’s hard work to get it right) and then painted the final surface. All done and I think it looks pretty good!

Setting and pouring the footers. I used up some rubble from some garden-edge curbing that I’d pulled up as some bulk in the footings. The plastic pots are so that there’s holes through the footing for drainage.

Completing the brickwork. This is where I learned that I’m not very good at laying bricks and that it’s really hard work. The end result wasn’t too bad, but I’m glad there were only 3 courses.

Rendered and painted - final product. The mulch around the orange trees also tidies it up and makes it look a lot better.