Hide top of retaining wall

55E2D75D-BE69-4C66-B2E9-3DCD57457E7A Hi guys,

We have a 8m retaining wall that runs a long the right hand side of our garden, next doors house is some way below ours so the wall
Is ~4ft high.

However it has these unsightly bricks on top which look terrible. I’m looking for inspiration as to what to do to improve it.

I’m thinking either:

1) cut some patio tiles to size and lay then on top. Or

2) knock the bricks off, and use some sleepers to build a little flower bed all the way along.

does anyone else have any suggestions?

 

Are you allowed to knock the bricks off ?
Dont think I'd want to tamper with that wall, but you can put something on top.

Would be good to have a border along there as well, you can then grow plants up the fence and it will make the grass easier to cut.

 

If the wall has any cracks you could grow Mexican wall daisies, Erigeron karvinskianus, in the cracks. Its roots will go deep into the wall so that once established it is drought tolerant.

It is the only flowers I can think of that will actually grow its roots into the wall itself. Some people have luck with getting the bellflowers, Campanula portenschlagiana or Campanula poscharskyana, to grow into wall cracks. I don't think Aubretia would actually root itself in a wall, there would need to be recesses in the bricks holding quite a lot of soil to grow it on top of a wall so it can cascade down the wall. Other people might understand these better than I do.

 

Hi guys,

apologies for lack of updates, I ended up going with some trough containers (see attached)

i have no experience with growing in these so I don’t know how everything will grow. My concern is perhaps they get root bound at some stage? The drainage at the bottom seems very good though.
A2C66695-580E-4037-B768-67FF76352B79

 

Hi @Dutch02,

Looking at your first photo, to us the retaining wall has been improperly finished or has someone removed an existing capping to allow that fence to be put up flush to the wall ?

Those bricks and the mortar are simply too open and exposed and all the rain and frost will soon get in between and start to degrade the wall.
As we know from experience, repairing or rebuilding a retaining party wall can be an expensive and sometimes problematic task.

If it was us, with your neighbours agreement, suggest you use some form of capping over the length of the wall , like the one below or a flat slab bedded at a slight angle to run the water off onto your lawn.

Putting the planters over the exposed brick will just lead to more water runing onto them but should be ok there if you capped the wall.
Though understanding @ groundbeetle idea, you need to ensure plants do not root into the wall as that will equally loosen the mortar long term.