How to Know If You Need a Retaining Wall in Your Yard

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    When you become a homeowner, you’re signing yourself up for investing your time, money, and vision into making your property the best it can be. That means looking for creative and eye-catching ways to take your landscaping to the next level. For many homeowners, a well-built retaining wall will do just that. Retaining walls allow you to have different soil levels in your yard. This way, no cascading or tiered garden presentation is out of the question for your garden.

    Aside from fulfilling your creative vision, retaining walls also have a structural purpose. They hold the soil together to stop erosion so you can build the garden of your dreams. Here’s how you can tell if your yard is in need of a retaining wall to keep it together.

    You Need Flat Land For Greenery To Grow

    If your house sits on a slope or any sort of multi-level landscape, you may be thinking that having a garden is out of the question since everything you plant may end up getting uprooted by gravity. Retaining walls are your number one defense against this happening since they can create patches of flat land that let you grow whatever your heart’s desire without worrying about it rolling away.

    There Are Issues With Water Drainage

    If you’re noticing a lot of standing water pooling in your garden, this is something that needs to be fixed. These patches can drown roots, leave them waterlogged and rotting, and become breeding grounds for disease-spreading insects like mosquitoes. Luckily, retaining walls can help alleviate your water issues.

    Retaining walls break up the levels of your land and come with built-in water drainage systems that redirect water towards storm drains or other waterways. Water drainage systems are an essential part of retaining walls since the hard material they’re made out of isn’t porous enough to let water easily pass through.

    You’re Concerned About Erosion

    Erosion is an expected part of building a home on land that’s not firmly packed on soil that doesn’t have a lot of roots holding it together. But it’s annoying having to plant and replant a garden you worked so hard on because of errant mud and water eroding down onto them. Moreover, you want to maintain the structural integrity of the soil your home is built on, and a retaining wall can be a part of doing just that.

    Building a retaining wall helps channel water down to places where it won’t pose a risk of erosion. That way, you won’t have to wash away as features you’re proud of get washed away.

    You’re Looking For A Creative Way To Separate Your Backyard

    If you spend a lot of time doing a bunch of different activities in your backyard, you may want to consider retaining walls as solutions to divide the space up. For example, you don’t want the yard where the dog and the kids play flowing into the patio area where you host events and have fires and cookouts. The same goes with your plants, you may want to keep those out of harm’s way and make sure they grow nicely by keeping them separate from the rest of your yard space.

    Retaining walls visually separate your backyard so that you can have different zones for activities without you having to worry about people following the plan. They’ll just naturally gravitate towards whatever space works best. Moreover, having connecting stairs in between each retaining wall area creates an interesting and visually appealing cascading effect.

    You’re Concerned About Your Foundation

    Not only can erosion damage the plants you have making a home in your garden, but it can also wreak havoc on your home’s foundation. Both the soil close to the surface and deep below it are affected by soil erosion. When the soil deep below the surface erodes, it leaves large voids of space that can’t support much of anything. If your house’s foundation rests next to or on top of these gaps, its stability can begin to become compromised.

    Water can pool in these voids which can then seep into your foundation and crack it. That’s the last thing any homeowner ever wants to happen because it’s a costly repair that can affect the safety of your entire home. Luckily, retaining walls can help stop this erosion by diverting water and keeping soil contained.

    Here are just a few ways to tell if your home could use a retaining wall. Even though it’s a cool aesthetic choice that helps visually make your landscaping flow nicely, it’s also a preventative safety feature to prolong the health of your soil and your home.

    If you’re needing help to create a retaining wall in your yard, you’re looking in the right place. Click Get Started today.

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    About The Author

    Robyn is a 2009 Graduate of the Kansas State University Department of Horticulture. She grew up in South East Kansas where she graduated from Humboldt High School. She was a Kansas State University Leadership Scholar and President of the Horticulture Club. She married Bret in 2009 and they have a daughter Ellie, born in 2021. Their family is completed by three adopted dogs.

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