On the north side of our house sits our kitchen with its many windows and skylights as well as two bedrooms and a bath. Just outside is 13-21 feet of yard between us and our neighbors. These photos show what the area looked like when we bought the house. We inherited a patch of grass, a long concrete patio, multiple trees and boulders, and a retaining area along the fence full of flowers and bushes.
Work here was, according to our landscape architect, supposed to be minimal. It included replacing the rotting wood retaining wall, converting some of the concrete areas back to bare ground, and adding plants. (I never did take a photo of the wood retaining wall, but you can see it through the kitchen windows above). I began the work of replacing the retaining wall because I could reuse any lumber still in good shape for the garden boxes to be built on the east side of the house. As I took apart the wall, I peeked over the fence and into the neighbor’s yard. I figured the retaining wall was indeed retaining the ground given that our house sits on a small hill with our neighbors sitting further up the hill from us. And, indeed, the ground did slope, but not along the entire length of our fence. Some 30 feet of fence outside our kitchen sat at the same elevation as out neighbors. That meant the bulk of the “retaining” wall was not retaining anything. Instead, it was effectively a giant planter box. Where our side of the fence might measure 4 feet from the top of the retained area to the top of the fence, our neighbor’s side simply had a normal 6 foot fence. No bueno. That explained why the fence was leaning—the weight of the dirt was pushing it over. This called for a change in landscape plans.
I started by making room. Low hanging branches were in the walking path along with many dead limbs. Those needed to go. I cut down a few smaller trees and lots of dead material. I also had the utility company lop off tree tops that were all up in the business of our electric lines. Some of the trimming was pretty severe and my wife began to tease me that I really wanted to do was go around cutting things down. Personally, I think the aesthetics have improved. Nonetheless, losing trees wasn’t great, but they were too tightly packed anyway, choking each other out of sunlight (Rush’s tune The Trees pretty much sums up this tale).
With more room to work with and better clarity of what was going on, I decided to take out the retained area along the fence altogether in preference for retaining only the area that actually sloped to higher ground. Doing so would provide a focal point for the area and remove the issues with the fence. I’d simply move the dirt in the planter box to fill the newly built retained area. The rotting fence, with no dirt piled against it, could be replaced with a normal, full height version (though a project for another year). It was time to build a new stone retaining wall.
We bought 3 tons of moss rock sourced right here in Colorado (so it wouldn’t look out of place). It’s not easy to work with—it’s more irregular than I bargained for and prone to chip and break where you didn’t want it to. That turned the work into a complicated, heavy, and sometimes frustrating jigsaw puzzle. My back still hurts. And, of course, it ended up taking longer than I anticipated, but that goes without saying.
The time lapse will show a good portion of the build. I didn’t get smart about filming it until I had already started, hence why the wall is already underway at the beginning. You’ll notice my original plan for the wall to take a right angled path fell through after most of it was built. What a waste! In the end, I think this more natural shape ends up working better given the sloped transition from the lower flat ground to the higher ground.
Less noticeable was my serendipitous attempt at steps in that reconfigured portion of the wall. After some time, it became obvious that my dwindling rock supply would not support it and finishing the length of wall needed. I abandoned it along with the hours invested. Live and learn.
There’s still work to do, no doubt. But this damn wall feels like a milestone accomplishment worth writing about. So what else is on the to do list?
- Take out the remaining grass and two sections of the concrete patio.
- Plant vegetation
- Dig a French drain and dry well.
- Convert the pop up sprinklers into a drip system.
- Add a second tier retaining wall closer to the fence since the ground slopes up higher there.
Look out for at least one more post with odds and ends I’ve tackled between this work and the work I did on the east side of the house.