Durable retaining walls can certainly beautify the appearance of any property. The reason for building these walls is to prevent debris, soil, and other matters from passing into other areas. There are varieties of materials that can be availed these days for building walls like wood, stone or cement. These walls not only retain the soil from getting eroded or washed away, but it also prevents the collapse of any wall on a higher ground.

Types of materials that can be used for building walls

• One of the most preferred and popular is wood-based durable retaining walls which can be utilized to fulfill smaller needs. 
• Retaining walls made of wood is best to use when the barricade is supposed to be not more than three feet in height. When it is about building a wall with wood always make sure that treated lumber is not used, as it is least stable.
• On the other hand, using concrete for retaining walls is best in terms of strength and durability and can be the best choice for accent walls in garden and yards.
• Concrete walls can be built up to 30 inches in height.

Durable retaining walls can also be built out of stones. The stones that are used for these walls are basically cut stones. The best advantage about stones is that the walls can be built up to greater heights in comparison to cement and wood. The average height is about 8 feet and once built can last for a lifetime.

Types of retaining walls and their uses 

There are basically four types of durable retaining walls; cantilevered, gravity, anchored walls, and sheet piling. Gravity walls are the best for stability against the earth’s forces. They are very much dependent on the weight of the wall material. If the height is taken into consideration they gravity walls are not more than four feet tall and it is made out of stone or concrete.

What are cantilevered walls?

• Cantilevered walls are made out of reinforced concrete or masonry. However, to build cantilevered walls one has to pay careful attention to its design and construction.
• One the other hand, when one wish to build durable retaining walls out of sheet pile the materials that are used are mainly steel, vinyl or wood.
• This type of retaining walls is built mainly on tight spaces with soft soils. Anchored walls are best used in cantilevered, gravity and sheet piling walls.
• The only thing that gets added to these walls is the cables which can be anchored in soil or rock.
• There are also various retaining techniques that can be applied retaining walls like soil strength, soil nailing, mechanical stabilization and gabion mesh.
• The soil nailing technique can be applied for gravity walls, sheet piling or cantilevered walls which need to be reinforced with steel bars.
• On the other hand, the soil strength is used to decrease the pressure which the earth’s elements use against the wall. Gabion mesh is a kind of wire mesh which diminishes the erosive forces of the earth.

How to choose the right retaining walls for the garden or the yard?

To decide on the material that should be used for building retaining walls depends a lot on the surrounding environment. Apart from that one also has to take into consideration the suitable budget for building the wall, texture, and color. If one is planning to build a bigger sized wall it is important to use a durable and strong material.

The other important issue to take into consideration is the drainage facility. By planning the drainage facility, wisely will definitely help in increasing the strength of the wall. However, if proper drainage strategy is not made there are high chances that the wall may collapse with time.