4 Best Materials to Choose From for Your Retaining Wall

Once you’ve realized your entire backyard is sliding down a slope, you’ve panicked, and decided you need a retaining wall — FAST — one big question looms:

What’s the best retaining wall material? 

Here in Sarasota, engineered concrete blocks are the best retaining wall choice, with a variety of colors and styles available to coordinate with your home or other elements of your landscaping. 

Problem solved, right? Well, a few other options are available, too.

Let’s take a look. 

Keep reading to learn more about:

• Why you might need a retaining wall
• Engineered block: the best choice
• Florida cap rock
• Stucco over engineered block
• Oolite 

Why You Might Need a Retaining Wall 

Do you dread rain because you have trouble with soil erosion? A retaining wall can help your soil stay put. Here in Central Florida, we can get nine inches in a day, which means landscape design services in Sarasota requires building a fair number of retaining walls. With that much rain, soil on a slope doesn’t stand a chance. 

Retaining walls made of concrete blocks, stone, or other materials hold back the soil behind them, which is especially handy if your property includes a hill or a slope. 

Erosion is a huge pain. It washes away valuable fertilizer and nutrients your soil needs. It can destroy your plants and damage your home’s foundation.

Try to ignore your partner’s bad new haircut or that key lime pie on the counter you were warned not to sample, but don’t ignore erosion. 

A good retaining wall helps prevent erosion by reducing the speed that water travels across the soil.

But these handy walls have other uses, too: 

• Retaining walls make great seating walls to provide extra plopping down spots in your outdoor living space.
• The same construction that creates a retaining wall is also perfect for raised flower beds. They look great curving around the edge of your patio.
• Planning new construction? Florida building codes take into account rising sea levels. That means you’ll likely face new construction rules that require you to build several feet higher than an existing structure. A retaining wall helps even out the difference and gives you usable level space.

Now that you’re pretty sure you need a retaining wall — or maybe even two! — what’s the best retaining wall material? 

1. Engineered Block: the Top Choice 

In most cases, Belgard engineered concrete blocks are the best retaining wall blocks, with lots of great colors and textures that can complement your existing home in a bunch of ways. 

Coordinate the pre-made blocks with your house color, roof color or trim. Or match them to your driveway or patio pavers. There are plenty of choices. 

Different size blocks are available, too. What size to choose?

It depends on the size of the retaining wall. Larger, taller walls look best with larger blocks. Shorter walls look best with smaller sizes. 

Not sure what the best retaining wall blocks are for your property? No worries. We’ll bring several samples out to your house so you can see how they’ll look. And we’ll patiently wait while you stare at them for 25 minutes saying, “hmmmmm…”

2. Florida Cap Rock

Florida cap rock is limestone quarried here in Florida. The boulders, ranging in size from a foot or two to as wide as 6 feet across, are mostly white but can have iron deposits running through them that lend an earthy orange-brown detail.

It’s called cap rock because it serves as a “cap” over layers of sand 10 to 15 feet below the ground. It often includes natural nooks that give it a rustic, natural look. 

Landscapers consider this among the best stone for retaining walls in Florida, also often using these natural rocks for poolside waterfalls or accent boulders. 

We recently used cap rock to create a terraced planting area for homeowners who wanted a more natural look than engineered block. 

3. Stucco Over Concrete Block

Some homeowners want a painted retaining wall that perfectly matches the paint color of their house. 

In that case, stucco can be applied over an engineered block retaining wall, then painted to perfectly match your house, for the best retaining wall material to match a painted home. 

4. Oolite

If you want a retaining wall that’s also a cool conversation starter, check out oolite stone.

Oolite is a type of coral stone that’s great for beach-inspired architecture. It has layers of seashells, coral, and oceanic life fossilized into rock. 

Its intriguing texture actually looks like coral, formed by thousands of years of mineral deposits, oceanic movement, and pressure. 

So, oolite wins for the best retaining wall material to start a lively dinner party conversation — and the most fun one to say. 

Ready for Great Retaining Wall Landscaping? Talk to Us

 What’s the best retaining wall material? If your yard is slip sliding away as you’re reading this, grab whatever’s handy — your couch, your nightstand, your kids. 

But hopefully, you have a bit of time to ponder the choices.

Get started by chatting with one of our landscape designers, who are happy to help you figure it all out. Our Sarasota landscape design services are ready to lend a hand, or even two if things are really crazy out there. 

Give us a call or fill out our form today! Our team of Sarasota designers will help you decide if a retaining wall is the perfect addition to your backyard or vacation rental property.