Griffith Indiana Retaining Walls – Raised Beds

Adding more soil on that wet spot only makes a taller wet spot. The clay on a flat Griffith lot holds spring water right at grade. So the extra soil stays wet, and the bed loses its shape. Retaining Walls in Griffith hold the planting mix up where the yard can drain.

We’ve dug into these yards for years. After a wet spring the top few inches can look firm while the clay underneath is still slick. Because the lot has almost no fall, that water has nowhere to run. Then a raised bed built straight on the clay just sits in it.

Gardeners around Griffith have told us tomatoes and herbs stall when the roots stay cold and wet. When we pull a failed timber frame, the boards are usually soft at the soil line. The mix behind them has turned to mud. We use a low concrete wall to lift the planting mix off that wet grade.

Retaining Walls in Griffith Hold Soil Off the Wet Grade

For a garden bed the wall is usually low, around knee height or a bit under. We set it on a footing cut below the soft topsoil. So the wall stays put when the clay moves. Then we fill behind it with a planting mix. We don’t dump more of the native clay back in the bed.

People have asked if a taller pile of soil would do the same job. We have watched those piles wash out at the edges after a hard rain. So we build Retaining Walls in Griffith with a low wall and a top the mower can pass. The lawn can stay at the old grade. You can mow along the wall without catching the soil.

Flat lots in Griffith, Indiana leave spring water sitting at grade. Heavy clay is slow to let that water down. Because of that, we hold the planting soil up off the wet ground, where the bed can drain. The wall keeps that soil from sliding back into the yard.

Drain Paths We Build Into Retaining Walls in Griffith

Clay doesn’t take water down in a hurry. So water behind a solid wall will push on it if we give that water no way out. We place clean gravel against the back of the wall. Then we set weep holes low in the face, or a short drain that exits at the base. Water leaves at grade through those exits.

We have opened beds where a solid pour had no weeps at all. We saw staining on the face, and the soil at the back had packed hard. After we add the gravel and the exits, the planting mix can shed a rain. But that matters on Griffith clay. The clay under the bed stays tight, so the bed has to drain on its own.

A garden wall counts as residential concrete, and the visit often covers more than the bed. When a timber edge has failed beside a service walk, we tear that walk out too. We replace it while the forms are already on site. Some yards want the wall face to pick up the porch color. Then we can run a colored mix for that. You can look through finished jobs in our Photo Gallery.

Those steps are the same ones on our retaining walls work. That covers garden beds and an old edge we have to tear out.

Retaining Walls in Griffith also come up along the side of a house, where the downspouts dump. We keep the wall clear of the foundation. After that, we give the roof water its own path away from the bed. Then the bed soil stays fit to plant. But the downspout water has to stay on that separate path.

Winter Wear on Retaining Walls in Griffith

When the ground freezes, trapped water can press outward on the wall. So we check that the exits are open before we backfill. Once the soil goes in, you can’t clear a plugged weep. We have come back to walls that leaned after a cold season. We found tight clay backfill and no gravel.

On a front-yard bed, Retaining Walls in Griffith are the edge you see from the sidewalk. We form that face straight and keep the top even. A crooked cap is easy to spot from the drive.

Cabe’s Concrete is a family owned and operated company, and our doors opened in 2006. The company background is on our About Us page. We work across Northwest Indiana, and Griffith sits in that area. But we plan a small bed wall so we can get in and out without dragging the job out.

We source the concrete and the stone ourselves so we know what is in the wall. On Griffith clay we want the gravel to stay open so the drain keeps working.