the reason why I'm making this video is
to point out a couple of problems you
could have
planting large trees or even plants
behind certain types of plants behind
retaining walls or even in front of
retaining walls I mean I like the look
of ivy plants growing up or down hanging
down retaining walls I love that I love
plants but I do not love the problems
that come with plants and trees some of
the time if you're going to plant a tree
behind a retaining wall then this tree
will need to be pruned and maintained to
keep the roots in check and once you get
these roots of a large tree searching
their way and finding their way into any
little crack behind the retaining wall
and then growing larger and eventually
forcing the retaining wall apart causing
it to crack then this defeats the whole
purpose of even building the retaining
wall in the first place and as you can
see here I'm going to point it out here
in another video you can actually see
the moisture at the bottom of the
retaining wall and like I said the next
couple of pictures I will show you where
the moisture what it looks like you can
always go back and look at it but it's
basically the discolored area at the
bottom you can actually see where the
moisture is coming through the retaining
wall in the area where it is not painted
the paint sometimes will keep some of
this moisture back and I believe I made
another video on that already how the
paint how it really isn't good to paint
a retaining wall now here's a view of
the rest of the retaining wall and you
can see there is no tree there's no
plants hanging over it but there is
still moisture and there's the moisture
the little gray spot that's coming
through so this tells me that the ground
cover and the ground cover is there for
a reason by the way it's there to
prevent the soil erosion if the ground
cover wasn't there whenever it rained
all of the dirt eventually would wash
its way over the top
of the retaining wall and create a
problem for the other side there so keep
that in mind is kind of it this is just
a tough situation you put a retaining
wall up and you expect it to last
forever but that's not always going to
be the case and you can actually
whenever you're doing maintenance you
inspect these your retaining wall just
like the rest of your property on a
regular basis you're going to be able to
see if there's any problems and then
monitor those problems you're going to
be able to do something about that
put another ground cover up reduce the
amount of water you're using on the
ground cover already and again problems
like these aren't going to arise most of
the time this block wall does not have a
drainage system behind it if it had a
drainage system set up correctly behind
it then you probably wouldn't be seen
any of the moisture there or at least
you wouldn't be seen as much of it now
the lighter areas you can see right here
that's actually where the block wall is
dry it is not wet and again you're going
to see this a little more often on
retaining walls that do not have a
drainage system and you know this this
is stuff that's going to continue to
happen ten years from now 20 years from
now because builders need to save money
a drainage system might have cost
another four thousand dollars to put in
it might have cost another five hundred
dollars to put in but if you don't have
the money to put it in or you got a you
need that money somewhere else then
you're going to cut some corners and
when the job is finished it's going to
look great but ten or twenty or even
thirty years down the road it could look
something like this here's an example of
what a lot of moisture can do to a block
wall and and again I'm not saying that
that 100% this is all do for moisture
but there's a good chance that moisture
has a lot more to do with it
than
anything else I mean who knows even
though these blocks could could have
been could have been manufactured
incorrectly but why aren't the rest of
the blocks doing the same thing so
there's got to be a problem and these
are the problems you're going to be
looking for
after you have built the retaining wall
incorrectly and have planted too many
plants up there and you're watering the
crap out of everything this is actually
something that that could happen there
is a possibility here anyway that's it
for the video don't want to get carried
away I already have gotten carried away
like I normally do I'm trying to share
information with everybody I mean I
really do I just hate to see problems
like this you know to replace the entire
block wall is going to cost a lot more
than it would have been to put the
correct drainage system in and maintain
it and make sure that there isn't wasn't
too much moisture there to begin with