A Keystone wall I built

Here's some pictures of a large Keystone wall I built for my parents. I used "Standard #1" Keystone blocks (16" wide and 22" deep). It's kind of a neat system. They're connected together with fiberglass pins, and a mesh is connected to the blocks (With the pins) and set back into the hillside every so many rows.



I planted bougainvillea in some of the planter blocks and I wasn't sure if it was going to work because I really had to prune the roots in order to get them into the little holes. All of the bougainvillea, except for the purple, is doing great now. And maybe the purple will make a little bit of a comeback this summer.

Looks outstanding! That's a lot of work! Good job. Don't feel bad if your Bougainvillea doesn't take, those plants are very fussy when transplanting.

plantnerd wrote:

Looks outstanding! That's a lot of work! Good job. Don't feel bad if your Bougainvillea doesn't take, those plants are very fussy when transplanting.

My dad has had a great deal of difficulty with planting Bougainvillea. He's very careful. He cuts the bottom off of the container, and slices the sides so that the rootball is completely intact.

So I was a little amused by my success. I pulled the plants out of the pots, viciously cut the roots back, crammed them into the hole in the planter blocks, and even used a tamp to make sure that there were no air pockets around the roots. And I packed the soil until it was hard as a rock.

I checked the purple Bougainvillea today and found that I had used a potting mix on them and the soil was a little on the loose side. So I think I'm going to add some regular compactable dirt and tamp it.

WOW Rich. I'm very impressed. I can't imagine how much work that must have been. Hundreds of blocks and those things are heavy!! They are the large ones! The wall looks great. And like you said Bouganvilla are usually kind of fussy about the roots being messed with, but those seem to be thriving. You should be very proud of your accomplishment. It looks like a first class job to me.

Thank you Walter. Yes, the blocks were heavy -- kind of a pain to work with -- but it's an excellent system.

My bougainvillea is doing super. I'll take a picture tomorrow. It's growing so vigorously that it needs to be pruned back to keep from taking over the footpath.

Here's a picture I just took today. The bougainvillea is doing almost too well now.