How To Build A Garden Bed Out Of Dry Stack Rocks?

I’m glad to see I’m not the only one to experience what you went through. Too high, too low. Spend a few minutes trying to get this one to fit, only to reject it in favor of something else. Look at this angle look at that angle. Stagger the spaces. Dig a little, put some back. Finally in the end, when the last few rocks fit and make you look like you make stonewalls for a living, the feeling of real accomplishment sets in!

Quite helpful to have your experienced guidance. Rocks sloping inward and each new course spanning the one below, for example. I also appreciate the measured patience and attention to craftsmanship. Comment on freezing a good help and important to remember. I’m in Colorado in an extremely rocky place. I see lots of really horrible rock retaining and terracing efforts. Most frequently they are tossed on a slope like a blanket, or a rock slide.

What “will prevent things from falling out” is to run the length of the stones into the wall, perpendicularly to the dirt it’s supposed to be holding back, not run the length of the stone parallel to the dirt it’s holding back, like he does. That mistake is called “tracing” and is why his wall keeps failing and he keeps having to rebuild it. I see these comments, like “this is the most comprehensive and helpful article on a rock wall I’ve ever seen” and “The most helpful straightforward article I’ve found on dry stacking,” but this man makes every mistake in the book. Maybe that’s what’s meant, that this is a comprehensive example article of what not to do, like he only goes to two “layers” (they’re actually called “courses”) because it’s much easier, but that’s only because he doesn’t know what he’s doing, because three courses would be much easier, especially since it’d mean building the wall up to the required height instead of below it and having the ground slope down into the top course and especially since it’d mean not having to redo it in a couple years but having it built to last decades or even centuries– a dry stack. I mean, he fails to create a foundation that’s dug deep enough or level enough, fails to set up a guide string to keep the bump of each face stone in a plane (these two failures being a big part of why his second layer is so unstable that it’s too hard for him to do a needed third layer and fourth layer called a “cope”), fails to set the foundation stones so their length runs perpendicular to the dirt the wall’s to retain back but instead traces the wall by running them parallel (the very weakest way to do a dry stack), fails to run those stones two deep such that there’s an outer stone that creates the face of the wall and an inner stone that comes into contact with the dirt and retains it back, fails to tightly wedge in hearting (smaller stones shoved into the gaps between the face stones and the stones behind them forming the interior face stones that face into the dirt–hearting being like the filling in a foundation-stone sandwich–in order to then have a level course to set the next course) or pinning (smaller stones wedged lengthwise into gaps in the face stones to stabilize them and to work with the inner hearting to create a level surface for the second course), fails to establish a consistent batter both interiorly and along the face (the batter being the angle of slope of the wall with the face stones angling back planarly and the interior foundation stones angling at an upright 90 degrees from the ground below rather than also angling back as their 90 degree angle will be kept from tipping forward by the face stones, hearting and pinning and shouldn’t lean back towards the hill like the face stones because then you have a heavy wall whose weight isn’t being redistributed stably straight down into the earth but a wall resting on its back such that its weight is being transferred along the slope of thill and so in short order will result in that wall sliding down the hill.

I’m in zone 9a and my street always floods onto my lawn about a 1/4 to 1/2 way in. People always drive on my lawn making a mess! I’m trying to deter that so, I was thinking about a rock wall like this. Do you think that would work for me ? It is a heavy traffic street …the waves of 💦 may be a concern. What do you think 💭.

I’m a novice “waller” and have been doing a lot of research before i atempt my first wall. All research say to “not” put the long face of the stone as facing. Best to put the length of the stone in this creating the strongest possible wall. It is tempting to put the long face out because u cover more distance, however, this practice promotes a weaker wall. Very respectfully, DS

Thank you for sharing. Great article. Excellent workmanship. I have a question – I am reparing the rocks surrounding an old bed… these rocks are not all “flat” and I wondered if there is a modified method – perhaps that uses dabs of cement in between crevices of the stones to fortify the structure given the lack of uniformity of thickness of the stones…. have you any experience that you can share on this? The preexisting layers of rock around a garden are coming unhinged after many years… my thought was to remove the rocks, grade the ground, and start fresh using the same rocks…. perhaps there is another article for this type of technique that you can suggest for achieving a high quality outcome? Thank you!

Loved perusal you both do this, for what me and my neighborhood here would consider, the good ol’ fashioned way…. you even just used a piece of stone to do the job of what would have been done with a tool made for tamping 🙂 Came to your article cause wife n me are wanting to build 1-2 foot high rock walls around the oak and maple trees in our yard. So would have a circular rock wall around the tree, but its difficult finding articles that pertain to our type of job that we’re wanting to do. Well keep up the good work guys!

Great job. I have a similar, but much smaller planting bed our landscapers put in front of our front porch. Now, after 10 years, the soil is washing out one side. I’m not sure how to fix without dismantling the whole side nor do I know if it’s something best left to the professionals to repair or if it an easy diy fix. With mature Hostas, Ivy, Creeping Jenny, weed barrier and bark mulch, I don’t know how to go about fixing without damaging the plants. Any thoughts?