Reducing soil erosion, turning steep slopes into terraced backdrops, creating focal points in the landscape—retaining walls serve many purposes. Indeed, they are some of the most common ways to ...

Q. I want to build a retaining wall that’s going to look great for years. At my last house, I had a short retaining wall around a patio that started to lean out toward the lawn. The little wall was ...

Last week I wrote about my recent trip to Southern California. I was fortunate to spend time with a dear friend and his wife. I don’t know that I’ve ever met a person who’s more in love with a home ...

When it comes to choosing a retaining wall to hold back runoff in a terraced area, there are a lot of choices. Concrete walls are particularly popular because they are easy to use and come in a nice ...

Retaining walls can do more than add a polished look to your landscape. They also help tame slopes, reduce soil erosion, and even create usable garden beds or extra seating areas. In fact, when ...

Question: Everyone in my subdivision uses man-made blocks for the retaining walls they installed on the sloping parts of their yards. I do not like the look of these concrete blocks and want to use ...

The desire to have a bit of land to call your own is not an uncommon one. However, in the Bay Area, finding our own personal outdoor space can be a challenge. Some of us live in newer housing ...

Q: I have two deteriorating (but still standing) retaining walls made of timber and two even worse, leaning cinder-block retaining walls. I was planning to replace them all eventually, but to spread ...

In 2014, California-based developers Baldwin & Sons began the design and development of a housing complex on 99 acres of land in the city of Lake Forest, at the base of the Santa Ana Mountains—it's ...