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Gardening & Landscaping

Damp, ugly retaining wall - how to cover and what with?

Anonymous user 28/02/2024 - 3.12 PM

Hi, Our housing association house is built on a steep hill and our back garden is terraced. Previous tenants have created the terrace using concrete breeze blocks and as far as I can tell they didn't put anything behind the wall to stop damp getting through. As such we are left with an extremely ugly wall which is damp, weeping and covered in black patches. The wall is about 1.5 metres high x 3 metres wide. What are our options for making the wall more bearable to look at? Digging behind the wall in order to damp proof is not an option - we are mid terrace with no rear access, also the top part of the garden is patioed and there would be several tonnes of earth to move! Also we are on a tight budget. If we just painted it or rendered I don't imagine it would last long because of how damp it is. We were thinking stone cladding or some of that reed garden screen stuff

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2 Answers

Anonymous user

Hi Sea view, In your situation, I would make a fibre-glass mould of half a tree trunk, the height of your wall Drill and fix re-bar to the face at the centre of the mould, then place it in front of the wall, and cast brown concrete half pillars over the face. This will give a long lasting, maintenance free, appealing finish to the wall. Regards Simon

Answered31 March 2015

Curnow's landscapes

Rating: 5 out of 5

Winchester

Hi, If you are on a budget then a good idea would be to use planting to obscure the view of the wall. If you were to train evergreen climbers such as climbing Hydrangeas, Jasmine or Cotoneaster. They could be planted in the ground in front of the wall or in pots. It may take a couple of years but will give you a natural backdrop. Many thanks Dave

Answered24 March 2019