How tall can a dry-stacked stone wall be?

Dry-stacked garden walls are best kept modest — generally under a metre. The same municipal permit and engineering thresholds apply to stone as to any retaining wall, and beyond garden-wall heights an engineered block system is the right structure. For a tall slope, terraced stone walls or a block wall with stone accents both work beautifully.

Dry-stacked or mortared — which is better?

For garden walls in our climate, dry-stacked. It drains through itself, tolerates ground movement without cracking, and can be repaired stone by stone. Mortared stone looks formal but behaves like a rigid wall — it traps water, and freeze-thaw finds every mortar joint eventually. Dry stack is the older technology and the more durable one.

How long does a stacked stone wall last?

Built well, effectively indefinitely — there are dry stone walls in the UK centuries old, built the same way. Nothing in the wall rots, rusts, or cracks; if a section is ever disturbed, it restacks with the same stones. The stone will outlast the house.

Is natural stone more expensive than block?

Per foot of wall, usually yes — the material costs more to source and the fitting is genuine handwork that can't be rushed. Where budget leads and the wall is structural, engineered block is the value play. Where the wall is a feature you'll look at every day, stone is what people pay the difference for and don't regret.

Stone Walls

Rockery Walls & Stacked Stone — Natural Stone Retaining Walls

Low dry-stacked natural stone garden wall with planted bed above — Daedalus Contracting, Lower Mainland BC

Melville low linear garden walls with planted beds around a paver patio — Daedalus Contracting, Lower Mainland BC

Some walls are engineering; some walls are the reason people slow down walking past your garden. Stacked natural stone walls — dry-laid, fitted by hand, no mortar — bring a character to a Lower Mainland yard that no manufactured block can match. We build stone garden walls, rockeries, and rock wall landscaping where craft is the point.

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Tell us about your project and we'll call you to set a time to walk the site. We find the problem areas, how we'd get in, and what you're comfortable investing — no pressure. Your itemized price comes out of Planning & Design, before anything is built. We service the entire Lower Mainland.

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Allan Block Retaining Walls

Allan Block and segmental retaining wall systems — garden walls to fully engineered slopes, terraced yards, failing wall replacements, and natural stone rockery walls.

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Complete backyard transformations combining walls, pavers, turf, and rock features in one build.

Rockery Walls & Stacked Stone — Natural Stone Retaining Walls

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