Dry stone wall made of concrete slabs – A place for wallflowers

A dry stone wall to demarcate the terrace or a cozy seating area in the garden fits in well, once planted, seamlessly into any garden design. Walls made of natural stone are common, but they are usually quite expensive. A wall made of old paving slabs, on the other hand, only costs you a fraction.

Concrete paving slabs are part of the inexpensive initial installation on terraces and garden paths in many houses. But at some point they make new ones, more beautiful materials place. Then they are just rubble and literally difficult to dispose of.

Save yourself this hassle and give the old slabs a second life as an attractive drywall. However, you will need a large number of plates for this. Our wall has around twenty pavement slabs in the format 50 x 50 cm entwined. Who doesn't have enough or no old concrete slabs, The inexpensive material can also be bought or ordered from any hardware store with a building materials department. Alternatively, ask the nearest building materials dealer for you (Yellow Pages) Deliver plates. Pavement slabs in the format 5x50x50 cm cost about 7 Euro / sqm.

To make rubble stones out of the pavement slabs, hit the center of each plate with a small sledgehammer, so that it shatters into not too small pieces. For “more filigree” walls, thinner panels are used, but which are smaller in size.

When laying, make sure that the wall is clearly stepped. As it is an ornament- and no retaining wall will be, it should not intercept any areas that can be walked on and should not be higher than 1,5 m will be. Properly planted (see box) the wall becomes more and more beautiful and at the same time more stable over time.

1 You should use a hammer that weighs at least two pounds, to smash the pavement slabs. Usually a targeted hit in the middle of the plate is enough, in order to obtain several sufficiently large parts.

2 Level the ground in the course of the wall. Check again and again with a long spirit level, whether the foundation of the wall is horizontal.

3 As soon as the first row lies, pile up the next row. At the same time the series becomes about 5 cm backwards. This is how it is prevented, that the earth pressure later pushes the wall forward or pushes it apart.

4 After each row you have laid out, fill the back with sand and distribute it 2 to 3 cm high soil on the plates. This layer of earth ensures a firm, wobble-free board position. Plant roots can later penetrate this layer and additionally strengthen the wall.

5 The stone layers are "composite", so with about half a plate offset, placed on the previous layer of the wall.

6 The wall is finished, sweep earth into the joints on the front with a hand broom. Are all joints filled, you should plant the wall soon.