I built some short retaining walls over the last two years. One has survived a winter, and the other was just built this summer. I don't really know anything about masonry, but my walls are dry stacked. The lot was all sand before we built the house, so there's good drainage. I have some sand behind the wall and lots underneath. I think gravel would be better, but several of my neighbors have similar walls that don't seem to be damaged by frost, so I didn't bother.

I wanted my walls to look as nice as possible, so I used rocks with a flat face and made sure the flat face was facing out. That makes the wall look much flatter. My neighbors' walls are just round stones and they look good too.

Here's a link to my garden pictures. Look at the ones that say "West Side Yard" and "Back Stone Wall".

Here is a link that might be useful: Pictures of my walls and gardens

Hello Juggleguy......thanks for getting back to me. I love what you've done with the rocks, but I just love rocks anyway....something so "earthy" about them. I have to wonder tho if the dry stacking method would work for veggie gardens which naturally get watered alot......but then, I suppose you get rain where you live, so perhaps that point is moot. I just don't think I have the time, the strength or the ability to create these kinds of walls without the added security of cement or whatever brick layers use to keep stuff stuck together. I'd be afraid that while I was digging away, I'd step on the top and the whole thing would fall down. I'll keep looking at your pictures and see if I've missed something and at least get some great ideas for things to do with at least SOME of my rocks! Thanks for your time! Great yard!
Greenlydia

Do you have to have 2 feet tall raised beds? Plants would be happy in a simple one stone high raised bed. Just enough to give them good drainage. That wouldn't be too hard of a project.

Does it freeze in your area? That affects the mortar question.

One possible snag - you said your beds are 4 feet wide. Can that change? Otherwise you will spend 2 feet with the width of the rocks on each side, leaving you with only 2 feet for planting.

Retaining walls are a LOT of HARD work. They take a LOT of time. Is the price of lumber that expensive?

There are a few good books on retaining walls that you can get from the library for detailed how-to.

Dear Gotta.......no, my beds don't HAVE to be two feet tall, I just WANT them that tall. It freezes only once in a great while here and when it does, it doesn't last more than a few days at most. I'm afraid I didn't understand your "snag" question. My beds are 4X8X2........I would use as many or as few stones as I needed to keep them at those demensions. I am not building retaining walls. The fellow who answered me said he had just built retaining walls and I replied that although I found them very interesting, they were not what I wanted for my veggie beds. My question is simply how do I "glue" my round river rocks into place so they will stay put........do I need to use mortar or cement or would this wonder stuff Hypertufa do the trick. And as for the cost of lumber.......even living here in the wilds and woods of Washington State, lumber, at least the kind I would need to replace all of my beds, IS totally out of the queston. When I built these beds about 15 years ago, EACH BED, using cedar boards, cost me $50.00. I have twelve beds to replace......I can't even begin to imagine what that would cost me today! Any advice is welcome! Thanks for your respone.
Greenlydia

If your stone edging is 2 feet high, it is a retaining wall. It is retaining 2 foot high of soil which is a very heavy weight, especially when wet. The pressure of the soil will want to push out the stone, unless you follow retaining wall principles. They do not need to be glued together if they are laid properly, especially since it sounds like you have nice large rocks.

Thanks for your reply Gotta, but these stones are ROUND. There is no way to balance them without some sort of "glue." I see what you are saying about them being "retaining walls." Yes, I guess that's what they are, but have you ever tried to stack round rocks and have them stay in place......especially, as you say, they will be expected to hold in a great deal of dirt! They just can't do it. Flat stone I can understand the concept, but I don't know how to do it with ROUND ones! Any more thoughts? Thanks!
Greenlydia

If you want a mortared wall, using round rocks, I'm afraid you may run into a cost issue for doing 12 beds.

I know it sounds strange, but can you post a photo of the type of rocks you are working with?

Have you done a google image search for "boulder retaining wall"? That would be a great place to start. Here's one that sounds like what you are talking about.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:288871}}

Greenlydia, you can work with round rocks if you stack the second layer in further than the first, and to the extent that the rocks lean, make sure they lean into the side of the bed. In effect you are not stacking the rocks on each other, but rather embedding them into the side of the bed.

I personally hate the idea of glueing and mortaring rocks together as I am prone to changing my mind about things, and the rocks can always be used for a different application if they are merely propped in place, but if they have mortar all over them they are hard to dismantle, and hard to reuse. Quite aside from which, the mortar doesn't actually make the thing any stronger. It just provides a false sense of security so that most people who use it are less careful about placing rocks so that their weight holds them in place. Both types of retaining can fail, of course, but if an unmortared rock rolls out of place... well, you roll it back, or maybe you repack the section where it came from. If a mortared rock breaks out of place, well, there goes the weekend fixing that.

Regarding water, my own strategy with beds surrounded by rock retaining walls is to keep the soil level in them flat, not mounded, because I don't want water running down between/inside the rocks taking away the soil that supports them. I want the water soaking in where it lands.

A few more tips. Use the biggest rocks on the bottom and bury them about 1/2 way. Make the bottom of the wall deep (thick)to give the rest of the wall support. If you have any rectangular, or long oval rocks, use them for support by placing them so they angle back into the earth, high end out, low end buried, rather than horizontally along the face of the wall. Most of all, give the wall a healthy batter - slope it back into the earth, and build it thick all the way up, intermixing large and small rocks.

I grew up on an old farm in WI with dry laid field stone rock walls, some of which were 7 feet tall. Granted, the big wall utilized some very large rocks (3-4 feet). But, it is now 100 years old, and they're still intact. You should also plant the cracks with your favorite rock garden plants, for added support. Daylillies and hen & chicks grew in our walls back home.