An outdoor garden wall is a masonry element that is constructed around a garden, entry garden, or an outdoor garden courtyard.  Its purpose in landscaping is to create a special enclosure where hedges, shrubbery, plants, flowers, and small trees can be set apart for special emphasis and enjoyment.  Such a zone of special interest is sure to get the attention of guests and create an environment where special moments and memories can be enjoyed by all. 

While an outdoor garden wall is not a requirement for garden design per se, it will definitely add character and dimension to your yard if you invest in it.  It is a sure way to bring attention to a garden of any size.  A large planting will more than likely have a pathway running through it for guests to stroll down and enjoy the colors and smells of plants and flowers.  Adding a wall around the entire area creates opportunities for backlighting at night that make such a walk more magical and romantic than simple pathway and garden lighting can accomplish. 

Smaller gardens can also be accented with walls as well.  A small planting of shrubs and flowers can wind up looking dwarfed, or even on the verge of being swallowed up,  the sheer size of a large lawn.  However, adding a bit of masonry around the plantings lends a sense of structure and viable integrity to the design and also creates an architectural compliment to the home and corresponding outdoor rooms. 

In building an outdoor garden wall, height is a very important consideration for the designer to determine in advance of any actual building.  Walls of certain heights lend themselves better to purely aesthetic décor.  Taller masonry forms are deliberately built to create privacy and isolation from the surrounding Houston landscape. 

Generally speaking, small walls are mostly decorative.  They create structure without blocking a view of other areas of interest.  Many outdoor rooms, believe it or not, are made with walls very low to the ground simply to give groups of people a sense of closely knit community while they sit around a lighted fountain or outdoor fire pit to enjoy and evening of conversation. 

However, some homeowners want a courtyard that is completely blocked off from most of the outside world.  This is commonly done in entry gardens that are located to one side of the house on a property line with no visible boundary between the homeowner’s yard and the neighboring property.   In such a setting, a wall of trees can form the new property line, and tall outdoor garden walls with gated entrances and exits can create a courtyard setting that also serves as a transition area from the front of the house to the back yard.  

When creating custom landscape elements such as morning gardens, outdoor garden walls can also be customized as well.  Many times they are built as seat walls that allow people to sit and watch a fountain or enjoy a butterfly garden in the early morning sunlight.  Masonry in custom patios can also be created to combine softscape with vertical impact by actually building planters into the tops of the walls.  This is a design frequently used when building patios around outdoor fireplaces. 
 
The best thing about outdoor garden walls is that they can be built out of any masonry material.  This is good news for the homeowner on a budge.  Anything from natural stone, polished concrete blocks, and brick are the most common material types.  Many times a stucco finish or some kind of tile work is added to the wall to brighten it up or to compliment the mosaic of a nearby pool or something specifically avant garde about the architecture of the house.