In this video, This Old House landscape contractor Roger Cook discovers the wide world of stones.
Choosing materials for a stone wall
- Build low walls with cast-concrete blocks. Adhere the blocks together with masonry adhesive.
- For taller walls, use cast-concrete retaining wall blocks, which have tongue-and-groove joints or plastic pins that lock the blocks together.
- Round fieldstone must be carefully fitted together and is typically mortared in place. Rake out the mortar between the stones to create deep shadow lines.
- When using stone veneer, you must first build the wall from concrete block or poured concrete. Then adhere the stone veneer to the wall with mortar.
- Natural and man-made stone veneer are about 1 to 2 inches thick and available in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and colors.
- Man-made stone veneer panels go up very quickly and dramatically reduce the number of mortar joints.