The concrete base and retaining walls are now finished in the sunken garden. The blockwork will have a dry stone wall at the front. We have bought some reclaimed stone for this purpose. It is already coursed out – bags of 6 inch high stones and bags of 3 inch stones. This allows us to break up the courses when building a wall – we will put in some 6 inch stones at random. I built a small amount of test wall to make sure that it looks ok. It is difficult to tell from such a small section, but I am sure it will look fine.
The dry stone wall will be back bedded – a small amount of mortar is used on the back of each stone to hold them in position. Using mortar also allows us to cement in the metal (stainless steel) ties that have been left protruding from the retaining wall.