"sams" wrote in message
m...

Iam thinking of putting a 2' tall garden stone retaining wall in my back
yard.

I've done several of those and found them very satisfying. In my case I used
the natural stones lying around, of which I had many. Never had a problem
with snakes living in them (but then here in Eastern Ontario snakes aren't
very scary) but rodents do find them handy.

You can help to stabilize them by spreading them out on the ground before
installation and spending some time eyeballing them for a good fit. It takes
a while but you can come up with impressive results without mortar.

Good luck.