Question: What are the best ways to build a retaining wall? What materials work best?

Answer: First, if the wall is going to be more than 12 to 15 inches tall, consider hiring a landscape contractor to do the work for you. They’ve been trained to deal with the weight and pressure of soil behind such a wall, and they can save you many hours of hard work and frustration by putting the wall up properly the first time. Use timbers, ledgestone rock (many different types) or wall-stone interlocking concrete blocks. Be sure the wall slopes back into the hill, and use long anchoring timbers or stones to hold it in place.