Retaining walls are excellent for denoting outdoor spaces, turning slopes into usable areas and creating more space for flowerbeds. Using multiple levels, retaining walls can also be used to turn an ordinary garden into a vertical, paradise terrace. Here’s how the vertical design elements introduced by retaining walls can benefit your landscape.
Create more space for small yards
Using retaining walls as a means of terracing, you can create more useable area in your backyard. This is particularly useful for small yards within the city. The dimension provided by terracing also creates the visual impression of more space. Step gardens of this nature are easier to manage as each level can be used separate plants according to their needs or flowering time. As an example, plants requiring the most sun can be placed in the top tier, and plants requiring the least can be placed in the lowest, receiving shade from the plants on the higher levels. In narrow yards, terracing can be used to create either an incline or a decline to introduce a slope and make even the tiniest outdoor spaces more impressive.
Make room for attractive lighting designs
The vertical surface presented by retaining walls and terraces is ideal for mounting landscape lighting. Retaining wall lighting can serve numerous functions from being decorative to more practical. Lighting can be used to turn your retaining walls into night time accent features, or light up your flowerbeds, walkways and steps. The capstones used on some retaining walls provide the perfect alcove to conceal and protect light fixtures, but attractive light fixtures can just as easily serve as decorative features themselves. At night, retaining wall lighting highlights the layout of your retaining walls, creating visual interest for your evening backyard setting in Mississauga, ON.
Showcase quality hardscaping
Retaining walls provide an opportunity to showcase some impressive hardscaping materials. Whether you’re choosing the rugged, naturalistic look of natural stone, the richness of timber, the refined finish of concrete, or the fine, stacked look of stone veneer, retaining walls provide an additional opportunity to introduce these aesthetic touches to your landscape. Use your retaining walls to enhance and complement the style of your home and themes of your landscape.
To learn more about the incredibly versatile retaining wall product options Unilock offers, check out the Design Ideas Catalog here.
Add dimension to your landscape
In a city as relatively flat as Mississauga, ON, chances are, your backyard landscape will be relatively level. Retaining walls offer the opportunity of adding some interesting, multi-layered features. Meandering retaining walls are conducive to the flow of your garden and can contribute to a wild, rustic or country-themed environment while more geometric layouts are perfect for modern style themes or where a sense of order is desired.
Conserve water
In addition to the aesthetic appeal and character that retaining walls can introduce to your landscape, their effectiveness in conserving water and preventing soil erosion has made terracing a popular practice in agriculture, dating as far back as the Incan civilization and beyond. Recent growing concern for the environment has seen a rise in popularity of terracing in landscaping. Each step of a terrace collects and holds water while slowly releasing it to lower levels, allowing water to drain at a measured rate, thus reducing the need for irrigation. The steps of terracing likewise hold in valuable topsoil and prevent nutrients and minerals from being washed away, making for a healthier, more environmentally friendly landscape.