How to Install a Natural Looking Faux Rock Garden Wall

You can install a beautiful and practical faux rock wall using durable plastic wall components. These imitation rock walls provide a simple and attractive solution when landscaping requirements require wall transitions to solve yard and garden elevation problems. They also can serve as playground enclosures. They can be used for fencing in elevated gardens, flower beds and constructing retaining walls. Using prefabricated kits, installation is easy. It requires only minimum skills and equipment. The 40-foot wall described below can be installed in less than two hours.

Required materials can be purchased at any Home Supply store and include the following:

10 Plastic wall sections (4-feet long by 8-inches high)

10 Galvanized steel spikes (two-inches in diameter)

1 Roll of landscape fabric (36-inch wide by 50-feet long)

3 Bags of construction sand (40 gallon)

1 Sledgehammer

1 Flat nose shovel

1 Rake

1 Level (3 feet)

1 Roll of string (50 feet)

Step 1:

Measure the 40-foot length and 6-inch width of the area to be covered by the new wall. Add 4 inches to each end and each side. Mark the total area with string or chalk lines.

Step 2:

Remove the sod and one-inch of soil in the marked-off area using a flat nose shovel.

Step 3:

Rake the soil bed to an even consistency and spread 1/2-inch of sand over the surface.

Step 4:

Use an 8-inch patio brick to level and compact the sand to flat, to an even surface. Check level every three-feet using a three-foot level. Shift or add sand as necessary to achieve level surface.

Step 5:

Measure and cut landscape fabric to forty-feet, eight-inches by one-foot, two inches and cover compacted sand with the fabric. Add one inch of sand around the outside four-inches of the perimeter to hold the fabric in place.

Step 6:

Place the first four-foot long by eight-inches high by six-inches wide section of plastic wall four- inches from the end of the prepared soil and centered side to side.Check for level using three-foot level and adjust if necessary by adding or removing sand.

Step 7:

Place second four-foot long by eight-inch high by six-inch wide section by positioning it to overlap and nest with the six- inch long cut-away portion of the first section. Note that alternating ends of each section will a six-inch cut-away section at the top on one end and on the bottom of the opposite end. This allows one end to be overlapped the lower section of the next section. When properly nested the two- inch in diameter holes in each section will overlap forming one continuous vertical channel through both sections.

Step 8:

Insert the twenty-four inch by two-inch galvanized spike into hole in top of the overlapping sections and use sledgehammer to drive the spike into the ground until the top of the spike is flush with the top of the wall. This will lock the wall sections together and anchor these firmly to the ground surface.

Step 9:

Repeat steps two and three above for all of the remaining four-foot long eight-inches high by six-inches wide by sections.

Step 10:

Use shovel to back fill around the base of the wall using soil removed in step two of section one above.