Garden walls

Garden walls are built for a variety of reasons -- visual appeal as well as useful purposes -- and enhance a garden with their many attributes.

It is said that fences make good neighbors and so do garden walls. But garden walls offer more than just privacy and a clear separation between your garden and your neighbors. They can do so much for a garden and are much friendlier than a boundary that isolates homeowners from their community.

Garden walls promote safety. Constructa garden wall to create a confined space where kids can play or pets can frolic.

Walls, unlike fences or hedge rows, provide a more effective sound barrierfrom obtrusive noises, such as traffic -- a much need element for a peaceful garden oasis.

Walls have physical properties thatcan be used to your advantage in a garden. They block wind, retain heat, help control erosion (especially when constructed with fore and aft French drains), and provide shade.

Use a garden wall as a backdrop for an elegant landscape, a vertical planting surface, a place for vines to climb, assistance for drainage or irrigation, a place to sit (if the wall is low enough), and perhaps to enhance or create perspective.

Walls can be constructed from a variety of materials. Commonly they are built from stone, block,or brick materials, but timber, glass, scrap-iron, stucco, hay bales, living plants, plastic, tires, recycled material,and many other materials are also possibilities. Depending on the choice of material, walls can be more or less utilitarian. With our expertise at Environmental Construction, we believe almost any material can be used toconstruct a wall or enhance its beauty.

A wall is a permanent structure. It must endure wind, rain, freezing, heat, and possibly earthquakes, and needs to be constructed well to last a long time. If it is a retainingwall or there is a lot of hydraulic pressure, it needs to be well designed to deal with those stresses.A garden wall can be very small (as low as 6 inches) where it is used as a border, to very tall (as much as 18 feet high). It can be thin (4 inches), such as one made of brick, or fat (12 feet wide). The choice of a wall size is dependent on what your purpose is for having the wall.

A substantial wall will anchor the garden and landscape -- it becomes a separating boundary. A less substantial wallhints at structure but doesn't always impose this rigidity on the landscape. A good garden design will take these factors into consideration and have the wall either blend in and support the design or stand out and be the central focus.

Garden design by Environmental Construction uses the flexibility of garden walls and the benefits they provide to continually enhance the outdoor experience of homeowners. See our next blog for specificideas and creative usesfor garden walls of various types.

Category: Garden Structures