Anytime I see two less than 4' tall retaining walls very close to each other, I become suspicious that this approach was used to escape meeting retaining wall codes - and not having to use professionals (engineers and soil experts). Typically, a 4' retaining wall (aka, the above ground portion/height) is only part of the height of the wall (the footing is under the ground). Stepping two walls, as you describe, then also requires certain distances from one another - based on soil, wall design, wall height, etc. . . Usually those pushing for taking this approach do so for cost reasons - not for performance reasons . . . and also so that they can do the job (versus what is frequently the better/more secure approach). Of course "customers" like this cheaper approach - at first. While you say your county/State has no code/regulations to retaining walls, I think that only applies to walls that are less than 4' . . . and probably the reason why you have two walls, each at the "proverbial" 4 feet level, combined to retain 8 vertical feet of soil (and more importantly, water saturated soil). What is being done about water control? Drainage? Is there a drainage system built into the wall design? Is the land above the 1st wall getting watered daily? Water weighs a LOT and is responsible for roughly 90% of retaining wall failures! The other 10% is poor design, miscommunication, post-installation work in the area that puts the wall's retaining ability at risk. This is what you should do . . . find a very good firm who builds real, full height retaining walls and is licensed. Ask if they have an engineer on staff or how they handle the engineering on their projects. If they can answer that question satisfactorily, then ask them to come out, review, make a recommendation, and provide a quote.

cAROL - I think I still have the Salvia subrotundra seeds Token sent me when I was a newbie. Do you want them? They're an annual and by the time I got to annuals last year I was getting close to 500 WS jugs so I stopped. The seeds are yours if you want them.

I used to always use Google to search for username site:gardenweb.com. But it seems like ever since Gardenweb added "Recent Posts" to the right side of the page, I get too many useless results. The Gardenweb search feature at the bottom of each forum index page seems to work better for me. Type in your username, select "Entire Site" and click search. =========== Edit: Oh, once you get those results, look for: "Run this search at: HortiPlex Plant Database GardenWeb Europe GardenWeb Australia ThatHomeSite!" or similar underneath the results. The options vary depending on where you're at but you get the idea, click on the appropriate alternative to look for results there. This post was edited by chuggerguy on Sun, Jun 29, 14 at 17:19

I know I know - for what I pay for this I really shouldn't complain..but it gets so frustrating. Anyway since you suggested I post my workaround method... sI remembered some of the more unusual words in the post- one of them was needlepoint navy.(scary what trivia my brain retains) So I put "needlepoint navy" in quotes just like that in the google search bar. Then a few possibilities came up, one of which was this. I just tried it now, and it didn't work, but thankfully it worked before. My suggestion is to put in whatever unique definite words you can recall in the google search box and chances are it will bring up a long lost post. hope this helps someone:) Here is a link that might be useful: the long lost post