Front Yard Landscape Wall

With temperatures finally starting to drop we got the bug to do some outdoor work.  First off I should state that we absolutely hate the landscaping that was installed.  Nothing we could really do about it as the landscapers are free to do what they want.  What we were given includes a small evergreen bush at the front corner; a bunch of hollies; a few low level bushes in a very large mulched area; a few unknown plants at the garage corners; and a nearly dead street tree.  We often scratch our heads thinking "who would do this" but have always just rested in our knowledge that we would redo it to fit our tastes.

First step - get rid of the steep sloping mulch bed area on the corner.  The bed sits about 4 feet above the low spot on the ground so we needed a wall - a fairly tall wall!

We purchased all of our materials at Menards.  They had the best selection and they let you drive back into the garden center to load your truck.  We ended up using:

- 115 retaining wall blocks
- 10 bags of crushed aggregate base (for the foundation)
- 16 bags of topsoil
- 2 tubes of construction adhesive

We also needed a bunch of crushed aggregate to use as backfill along the inside of the block and we found that on a nearby home site where some excess aggregate material was dumped. 

We started work at 8:30am and finished around 6pm.  There was a kid's flag football game smashed in there along with a second trip to Menards for more material but overall it took us about 7 hours to complete.  The most time consuming part is digging out the foundation, compacting the base material and making sure everything is level.  The bottom row needs to be perfect.

Final results:

Next step is to finish the gutter to drain to the ground.  We had lengths of black pipe to drain the water out into the yard but they're difficult to mow around.  Instead we're digging out some of the lawn and dumping river rock (on top of a landscape cloth) to a distance about 4 feet from the house.  It looks great and is certainly nicer than the black pipe.

Maybe we'll find time to straighten that darned evergreen!