Retaining walls for sloped backyards in Pennsylvania and northern Delaware

A sloped backyard is not a flat lot that arrived damaged. In Chester County the ground falls away from the house on purpose of geology. In northern Delaware the grade is often shorter and wetter, and it still decides where you can sit. A retaining wall is how you borrow a level from that slope without aiming the rain at the foundation.

Field of Dreams builds walls as landscaping and hardscaping, with the steps, the planting, and the terrace. A wall bid by itself becomes a fence made of block. The yard still has nowhere to have dinner.

Chester County hills and New Castle clay are different slopes

West Chester, Kennett Square, Chadds Ford, and Landenberg often give you a real fall. The view is downhill. The mistake is one tall wall that flattens the lot into a platform and a cliff. Two or three lower walls can make a walk, a lawn you can use, and a terrace at the door — and they leave the hillside looking like a hillside.

Hockessin and Greenville are usually a shorter grade and heavier soil. Clay holds water against a wall that was drawn as a dry face. The wall still has a job: a level terrace, a step that is not a scramble, a bed that is not a washout. It does not have to be tall to be structural.

Along the water in Elkton and North East, a wall at the bank is also a view. A bright stacked face pointed at the creek is what the other shore sees. Stone that could have been there, and a top that is a path rather than a parapet, keeps the water as the main thing.

The water behind the wall is the design

Soil on a slope is always moving a little water. A retaining wall interrupts that. If the water has nowhere to go, it will go through the face, under the terrace, or into the basement the wall was meant to protect. Drainage stone, a way out at the bottom, and a grade on top that does not pond are the wall. The veneer is what you look at.

We will not set a decorative face on soil that was never prepared and call it done. Freeze and thaw in this climate find that shortcut. The first winter tells on it.

hardscaping and landscaping as one plan is the same argument one terrace over. A patio at the bottom of a slope, with no wall and no inlet, is a basin. The wall and the paving are how the lot sheds water. They are not two contractors hoping the other one noticed.

Make the wall something you can use

A wall you cannot cross is a barrier. The path down a Chester County slope is the project. outdoor and landscape lighting on that path is not a luxury package. It is how the lower lawn exists after dinner. Path lighting is the evening half of the same slope: the step, not the whole hill.

If the lower level is where a pool wants to live, the wall is also the edge of luxury pool design. Water at the bottom of a hill, with the equipment hidden and the coping level, starts as a grading drawing. It does not start as a pool shape dropped on the slope.

• Steps where you actually walk, wide enough for two people and a tray
• A height you can sit on, where a seat is more useful than a tall face
• Planting above and below so the wall is not a bunker
• A hearth or a terrace edge only when the footing was drawn for it
• Light on the step at dusk — the change in grade is where people miss

How we start

Walk the fall with us. Bring the door you use and the corner that already runs water at the house. walk the property for a West Chester hillside or a Hockessin side yard the same way. Call 302-234-8090.

Before the First Stone asks the question we ask on the lot: who owns the water between the wall, the terrace, and the planting? If the answer is three bids, the slope will settle the argument.

Questions homeowners ask

When does a sloped yard need a retaining wall?

When you want a level place to sit, walk, or set a terrace, and the grade will not give it to you without moving soil. A short series of walls is often kinder than one tall face.

Why do retaining walls fail?

Water behind them. A wall that looks solid and has nowhere for the hillside to drain will lean, weep, or heave after a freeze. The stone face is the last layer.

Can the wall also be the edge of a patio or a fire?

Yes, when it is drawn that way. A seat-height wall, a hearth, and a step are more useful than a bunker with a lawn on top.