If anyone has mastered the art of the beautiful wall, it must be the Italians. Stone walls terrace olive groves and vineyards between Trento and Matera, arched openings, an architectural masterpiece of the ancient Romans, transform dividing walls into a promise: that behind the wall there may be a magnificent garden or a fountain with seating. Over thousands of years, the population has learned to turn the disadvantage of a largely mountainous country into an advantage. But not only Italian garden designers, but also British and sometimes even German garden designers, are taking advantage of the opportunity to structure green spaces around houses with walls. But Germany wouldn’t be Germany if some rules didn’t apply.
Garden owners who want to terrace their sloping slope with natural stone walls should first check the local building regulations. In many federal states, a building permit is required above a certain height. It was only in 2021 that the first senate of the Higher Administrative Court for Schleswig-Holstein ruled that a building permit would have been required for a 1.80 meter high and over ten meter long wall (Ref. 1 LB 11/17). In the case mentioned, the wall represented a so-called ancillary facility, which should also have been at least three meters away from the property line. In residential complexes, neighbors may have legitimate objections to the changed visual appearance: Anyone who is a member of a homeowners’ association is not allowed to build a stone wall without the consent of the other owners. Not even if it was placed in a garden area in the residential complex with special usage rights (Frankfurt am Main Regional Court, Ref. 2-13 S 82/12).
Vera Gloeckner, a specialist lawyer at the Bavarian Association for Gardening, Landscaping and Sports Field Construction, has one main piece of advice: “If you want to build a wall, you should coordinate this with the respective municipality.” Because each municipality often has its own statutes regarding enclosures and buildings in the garden. “There are a lot of special rules.” And garden owners can’t even just put up a wall to protect them from the wind: “You have to check whether it is a structure and whether the distance rules from the neighboring property are adhered to.”
Once these obstacles are out of the way – then you can create attractive things with different types of stone, such as granite, sand-lime stone, slate or limestone: a seating area protected from the wind and view, a herb snail or simply a visual separation between the vegetable garden and the recreational garden. Or terraces on a slope that can be used for seating or growing fruit. There are few limits to your imagination.
In the best case scenario, you do the entire living space good with a natural stone wall. The nature conservation association Nabu emphasizes the benefit of such an unjointed wall – the dry specialists among the plants such as viper’s head or stonecrop can thrive there and provide food for insects. And all kinds of creatures feel at home in the cracks. The lizard definitely.
Even a single large stone can have a big impact – as a heat store for every fruit tree, the author once learned from permaculture expert Sepp Holzer.
(Photo: Bernd Schifferdecker (illustration))