5 Limestone Retaining Wall Ideas For Your Garden
When creating your landscaping design, you may find it necessary to include retaining walls in your garden to manage soil erosion, aid water flow or to make better use of a sloping area. While retaining walls are often built for practical purposes, you can still use them in creative ways to enhance the aesthetic of your outdoor space.
Limestone is often a popular choice of garden wall material for backyards in Perth. The creamy tones and understated, natural textures add a simple yet modern touch that will beautifully complement any landscape. Plus, the strength and durability of limestone blocks makes them ideal for outdoor structures.
If you’re looking to use walling in your outdoor area, you should seriously consider using limestone. It may be a common feature in many landscape designs, but there are many interesting ways you can use limestone to bring some originality to your outdoors.
Here are 5 ideas for how you could use limestone retaining walls to make a statement in your landscaping design.
1) Limestone Layers
If you’re looking for a way to break up or section lush greenery, a limestone staircase with adjoining walls could be a great for your garden. After every second or third step, you could branch off the staircase and build retaining wall extensions, creating a stacked, geometric look.
You could use each retaining wall layer as a garden bed, allowing you to play with height and depth when styling your plant life. Alternatively, you could take a more minimalist approach and use each layer as a grassed area.
It could also be an opportunity to inject lighting into your landscaping design, both around the staircase and within the layers.
2) Water & Fire Features
Another idea for adding extra visual interest to your limestone retaining walls is to install a water feature or fireplace.
From simple waterfalls to cascading fountains, there is no limit to the type of water feature you could create. You could build an endless or disappearing fountain where the water quite literally disappears from view or your water feature could feed into a small pond filled with lily pads and Koi fish. The choice is yours.
Moving to the other side of the spectrum of natural elements, you could use your retaining walls as a base for a fire pit. Perth certainly enjoys its fair share of warm and sunny days, but we also get plenty of chilly nights, especially during the winter months. To warm up your outdoors, you could build your walls into a fire place or submerge a fire pit into the top surface of your wall.
3) Curves & Crescents
Who said your garden walls have to form perfectly straight lines? You can create all sorts of shapes with your walls, using curves to draw the eye and create a striking effect.
By strategically positioning your retaining wall blocks, you can either build a continuous curve that bends inwards and outwards or a simple crescent shape. You could even create a circular garden bed using limestone retaining walls to frame a key feature in your landscape design, such as a significant tree or a sculpture.
4) Designated Spaces
Imagine if your entire home interior was open plan, with no walls or separation throughout the space. How would you know where your living room starts and ends, or which section is meant to be used as a bedroom?
Your outdoor area is no different. The space needs to be appropriately divided into specific zones to allow you to make the best use of your outdoors. Retaining walls can be highly effective in sectioning your landscape into spaces for dining, relaxing and playing. From a design perspective, limestone retaining walls can also make for attractive borders between grassed and paved areas.
While your first thought may be to split your backyard into two core areas, one for entertaining and one for lawns and landscaping, there are many ways you could use walling to divide your space. You could create multiple functional spaces or several garden beds if you’re wanting a low maintenance solution for your backyard.
5) Privacy & Security
It’s easy to become solely focused on your backyard, but your front yard has just as much landscaping design potential. If you’re living on a corner block or within a high traffic area, it may be an idea to use a limestone retaining wall to frame your property. Wrought iron fencing can be installed on top of a wall for added security, or you could plant tall trees or hedges within a garden bed for extra privacy.
By using a garden walling to outline the boundaries of your property, you’ll also be able to create a usable space in your front garden. You could spend time with friends and family or relax on your own without being in clear view of passing cars and pedestrians.
If you’d like to use a limestone retaining wall to make an innovative or decorative addition to your outdoors, contact Remastone today. Offering Perth’s highest quality, reconstituted limestone, Remastone can advise you on the best type of block to use for your retaining wall design.