In article , Franz Heymann
writes

"John Towill" wrote in message
.. .

I also had a very high bank to "retain". Cormaic suggested gambions but
as
the job was too big for me I had a large landscaper in, he did it by using
vertical girders set in concrete with railway sleepers forming the walls.
It looked good and as the resulting wall was south facing it is ideal for
growing trained fruit bushes up.
Sadly Cormaic (I should have known) was right and the walls are now bowing
very badly, and the landscaper keeps promising to come to fix it, how
exactly I can't imagine, and as he has not turned up yet I suspect that he
does not either. :-(

Why would gabions have been better?

While the wire framework is in place holding the stones together each
gabion is in effect a huge block of stone, and so a wall of them i going
to be a lot stronger (and more suitable for a retaining wall) than what
is in effect a fence of railway sleepers. It'll take a good many yers
for the framework to corrode - if indeed it does - I'm not sure what
they're made of - and by then it would have been consolidated into the
ground by soil washing in and plants growing over.

They're often used in motorway cuttings.
--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm