The Benefits of Retaining Walls: Functionality Meets Design

Retaining walls are an essential element in hardscaping design, making sloped areas more functional while helping reduce soil erosion. However, they also enhance your property’s aesthetic. In this blog, we will look at retaining wall benefits and their many applications.

What is a retaining wall?

Retaining walls play a critical role in landscaping design, offering structural support to sloped landscapes. Their lateral support resists the pressure of weighty soil, but can also be installed to support levelled areas on hillsides or slopes. They are typically made of stone or paving stone materials but can also be found in wood and composite wood designs.

Retaining Wall Benefits: Prevent Erosion

Ontario properties require “grading” to help direct water away from the home. This creates a slight slope that can contribute to soil erosion, especially for properties with improper grading.

Soil erosion undermines landscape integrity, causing shifting in garden beds and presenting a potential hazard similar to a landslide. Erosion can cause extensive damage to garden beds, shifting soil, uprooting plants, and interfering with planting positions.

Other risks include sinkholes, water pooling, and damage to interlocking and paved surfaces such as patios. Retaining walls prevent erosion related to sloping, creating a structural barrier that supports the weight of the soil. At the same time, they manage water to reduce “hydrostatic” pressure related to water retention in soil.

Retaining Wall Benefits: Healthier Garden Beds

Properly installed retaining walls improve drainage, helping to channel water away from the wall and your garden beds. “Weep holes”, installed above the footing, drain water from the soil, while drainage stones prevent soil from settling and becoming compacted.

By managing drainage during heavy rains, you reduce the risk of root rot that can kill your plants. Your flowers and plants can establish stronger roots both due to balanced soil moisture and decreased erosion.

Flatter garden beds using tiered retaining walls enhance stability, improving plant resilience. When runoff is managed with strategically placed walls, you also prevent soil compression and garden bed flooding.

Retaining Wall Benefits: Transforming Unusable Slopes

Both extreme and gentle property slopes can pose challenges for space usage. Simply repositioning dining furniture or chairs is ineffective on uneven ground.

Installing tiered areas using retaining walls levels the ground, allowing you to make the most of inconveniently sloped areas. Known as “terracing,” this landscaping trick is an easy and attractive solution that transforms unusable slopes into functional areas.

Each tier creates a flat-level area that’s ideal for garden beds, seating areas, or installations such as pergolas and gazebos. Stone wall installations add texture and elegance while providing erosion control to maintain healthy garden beds and keep tiers level.

Retaining Wall Benefits: Double-Duty Seating

Strategic retaining wall installations provide additional seating. Whether you need a structural retaining wall or stone wall installation for separation and aesthetic impact, seat walls are a highly desirable hardscaping design feature that creates a functional outdoor space.

Ideal for areas such as fire pits or garden beds around pools, the seating wall is a flexible design feature made all the more attractive when installed to create movement using curves, waves, or circular designs. Stone caps produce enough depth for comfortable seating while adding a higher retaining wall behind the capped area offers back support.

Retaining Wall Benefits: Low-Maintenance Features

Paver stone walls are a highly durable option that requires very little maintenance. When installed properly, the walls retain their position and structural integrity even when supporting massive weights. Paver materials will withstand harsh Ontario weather, thus reducing the need for constant repair or replacement.

Retaining Wall Benefits: A Smart Investment

Professionally designed and installed retaining walls offer an impressive return on investment in the following ways:

• Improved front yard curb appeal.
• Low maintenance (which saves time and money).
• Highly durable materials that offer lasting support and beauty for years.
• Enhanced aesthetics and function affordably expand living space.
• Improved safety prevents costly injuries and property damage.
• Reduced erosion mitigates risks for foundation damage.

Retaining Wall Benefits: Flexible, Versatile Designs

Hardscaping designs such as retaining walls are versatile design features tailored to suit any property size or style. Some examples of versatile design ideas include the following:

• Matching your home’s colours to create a unified look.
• Choosing opposing coloured stones to add drama or contrast for your home.
• Using varied colours to create accents, such gray wall stones with charcoal cap/coping stones, or adding an accent colour to draw attention to seating at a fire pit.
• Using raised garden bed retaining walls to create a sense of separation, such as squaring off a dining or lounge area.
• Installing end posts to finish off a stretch of retaining wall, complete with stylish stone post caps.
• Adding tiered gardens on a hill, complete with paver stone steps.
• Adding stepped caps to the retaining wall itself following the grade of a hillside.
• Creating whimsical effects such as alternating colours to produce a charming checkerboard pattern.
• Configurations range from straight lines to zigzag effects and curves and waves to circles.

Retaining Wall Benefits: Multiple Types for Multiple Purposes

Each type of retaining wall serves a specific purpose. Here are a few examples:

• Curb walls: Standing no more than half a foot tall, these “walls” keep plantings and lawns from infringing on neighbouring hardscaping such as paths and driveways.
• Gravity walls: These taller walls support pressure from soil to prevent erosion and collapse.
• Freestanding walls/parapets: The parapet is a design feature, but it can also create separation.

Retaining Wall Benefits: Increased Property Value

Stone wall installations increase property value in buyers’ eyes in many ways, including the following:

• Enhanced curb appeal.
• Low-maintenance materials reduce work around the home.
• Professionally landscaped gardens have a high-end, pricey look.
• Unified hardscaping creates a more attractive, inviting outdoor living space.
• Retaining walls improve outdoor functionality and safety.
• Stone wall installations are highly durable and won’t require costly replacement in the near future.
• Retaining walls reduce erosion and the risk of foundation damage.

Contact the Experts at Luxe Landscape & Construction

Whether you’re enhancing curb appeal, require support in hilly areas, or wish to enhance the appearance of utilitarian garden walls, well-designed retaining walls deliver on both form and function.

Before you start your next hardscaping design project, reach out to the experts at Luxe Landscape & Construction. You can call us at 289-800-7124 or contact us online. We’ll create functional, beautiful designs and ensure exceptional workmanship to create an idyllic outdoor retreat.