Garden Elements - Dry Stack Flagstone Seating Wall

Here in San Diego, our rolling hills mean we frequently use some type of a wall to expand a landscape area.  One type of a wall is a retaining wall to hold back a slope.  Sometimes walls are used make a raised bed for a vegetable garden.  I like to use a third type of wall called a seating wall.  Seating walls are generally 14” – 16” tall or the same height of a chair.  They serve 2 purposes, one is a garden focal point and the other is just a place to sit down in the garden.

Flagstone makes an excellent material for creating a dry stack seating wall.  Make sure to order “Patio Cut” flagstone to get pieces that are fairly rectangular in shape.  This will cut down on a lot of chiseling and shaping later in the process.  The material you see in these photos are 2” Patio Cut flagstone pieces from Southwest Boulder & Stone here in San Diego.

Once you have laid out the area for your wall you will need to excavate down at least 4” for a 16” wall. Fill the bottom of the trench with 2” of compacted base material to create a stable foundation for your wall.  Then start stacking your flagstone pieces.  You will need an epoxy to hold the small pieces in place.  Always check that each piece is level as you stack.

The wall in these photos was built by Rossco Landscaping, see my post on 5 Fantastic Landscape Contractors for his info.

Photos by Doug Kalal, taken at a client's garden in San Carlos