There are many hardscaping elements that can be added to a landscape design that are both attractive and functional.

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One example of this is the gabion wall. Gabion walls can be used in landscapes as retaining walls, decorative site walls, seating walls, accent walls and more.

Randy Jurgensen, president of Decorative Stone Solutions, based in Escondido, California, says gabion walls are well suited for mid-century modern designs as they tend to be more linear in shape and it&#;s harder to make organic shapes with gabions.

This hardscape structure has seen an increase in usage over the past few years and here&#;s what you should know if you are considering using one in your next landscaping project. 

What is a gabion wall?

Gabion is derived from the Italian word for &#;cage&#; and is a wire container that can hold any sort of inorganic material. They can form flexible, permeable structures that work well in stabilizing shorelines against erosion.

Originally these cages were wicker and were commonly used for civil engineering and military purposes. Leonardo da Vinci even used gabions for the foundation of the San Marco Castle in Milan.

Gabions should not be confused with bastions, which are gabions lined typically with a geotextile allowing it to be filled with a granular soil fill, instead of rocks.

Pros and cons of gabion walls

&#;I think the big pros are they&#;re economic, they have little to no maintenance, they&#;re easy to install and they are very long lasting, and they can be created fairly quickly,&#; says Jurgensen.

The cost of the wall depends on the wire being used as there are various grades and gauges of wire mesh available, but they are typically all galvanized. The other determining factor on the cost is the fill material being used.

Angular rock is the best gabion fill as they lock together and provide a non-moving unit. Jurgensen suggests using a heavier gauge wire if your customer wants to use a rounded river rock as the fill material to help it maintain its shape.

Jurgensen says unskilled laborers can easily learn to erect, fill and close the wire baskets properly.

&#;Pilings, underwater drainage systems and excavations are unnecessary,&#; he says. &#;There&#;s no need to drain the site or to construct a cofferdam for underwater installation. The first layer of gabions can be laid in water or in mud.&#;

Jurgensen says there&#;s no need to create a foundation for gabion walls as they end up weighing so much when you fill them with rock. He says what anchors the wall is the sheer mass and weight of the structure. The longer it&#;s there, the more it settles in and the stronger it becomes.

Any gabion wall 3 feet and under does not require the calculation of loads and stress it might take on, but Jurgensen says if you&#;re going higher than 3 feet you should get an engineer involved to make sure it&#;s safely constructed.

A gabion wall&#;s lifespan depends on the type of wire used and the amount of salt spray it is exposed to.

&#;Something that is very coastal tends to rust out like any metal a little quicker,&#; Jurgensen says. &#;The further inland you go the longer these tend to last but 50 to 100 years is the typical lifespan.&#;

Gabion walls are highly permeable and are able to bleed off any hydrostatic pressure, eliminating the need to install a drainage system.

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Unlike a traditional concrete wall, gabion walls are flexible and are able to move with the earth.

&#;Let&#;s say you&#;re in an area where you have a freeze thaw cycle and the earth rises and sinks as you go through these freeze thaw cycles,&#; Jurgensen says. &#;This has the ability to move with it so you don&#;t have a breakdown, where in concrete walls you&#;re going to get cracking and eventually collapsing under foundation and internal stresses of movement.&#;

Some of the cons are typically gabions are too bulky for smaller spaces and they may provide a home for unwanted flora and fauna.

&#;One of the drawbacks, and pro depending on what you&#;re after, is a lot of windblown and water-carried debris and soil can end up in all the crevices inside the wall so you can actually end up with some vegetation growing in these walls. Some people like that and other people don&#;t want to see that.&#;   

Another possible con is the industrial look of the gabion wall, which Jurgensen says some like and others prefer a more natural looking wall. He says one way to make these walls more attractive is to choose a good fill material.

&#;The more attractive stone you use, the better it&#;s going to look overall,&#; he says. &#;There&#;s a couple ways to fill these gabions. You can use a very good looking stone as the facing material so that&#;s what&#;s actually showing to the viewer and then you can backfill that with a less expensive, more industrial grade stone that&#;s not going to be visible but still acts a structural component of the gabion wall.&#;

The fill material can vary from logs to broken concrete to slag glass.

&#;You&#;ll see various types of landscape glass, big chunks of colored glass, being used that makes a pretty neat design both during the day and night,&#; Jurgensen says. &#;The neat thing about filling it with something like a glass product is you can use lighting inside, so you can run lighting inside of a gabion wall behind the glass, and then that can be lit up at night.&#;

The pros and cons of gabion baskets

Are you looking to find out more about the advantages and disadvantages of gabion baskets? If so &#; hopefully this blog post will help!

If you&#;re looking into using gabion baskets/ gabion cages to create a wall or fence in your property &#; you may be wondering if they&#;re worth the hype? Gabion baskets are often discussed in the landscaping and gardening communities &#; they offer sturdy and affordable options for walls, fences and benches &#; and they also look great!

If you&#;re looking to find out a little more about the procs and cons of gabions, hopefully this post can fill you in a little more, so you can familiarise yourself more with the process of installing gabions, and whether it&#;s worth it.

Are Gabions worth the money and the effort?

Here we&#;ll talk through the pros and cons of gabions baskets, and discuss their various advantages and disadvantages, so hopefully you&#;ll be able to figure out if it&#;s worth your time and effort!

Of course, we&#;re a little boasted here! We made a website about gabion baskets &#; so we think they&#;re great! But we&#;ll try and be as balanced as possible here and give you opinions from both sides.

Pros of gabion baskets

OK, so there are many advantages of gabion baskets&#; but some of the main pros are listed below!

• One of the main pros of using gabion baskets is the sheer ease of handling them, and how easy they are to transport too. Gabion baskets can be folsed down, and you don&#;t need to fully assemble them until you reach your destination. This makes them a great option for roof gardens (as an example!).
• The speed of constructing gabion baskets is the next big advantage of using them. Unlike traditional walls, which could take days to build for a beginner &#; a gabion basket is easy and quick to put together.
• Gabions are sustainable &#; the carbon footprint of CO2 emissions from a gabion wall, is 80% lower compared to a concrete retaining wall of the same height. 
• Another big advantage is that gabion baskets can be moved and are flexible too! If you want to move them after constructing them &#; it&#;s relatively straight forward.
• Lastly, a big benefit is it&#;s permeability to water. Gabions are great for drainage, so perfect for wet weather.
• Long lasting &#; gabion structures last for a long time and are hard-wearing too.
• Budget friendly &#; in most cases, the cost of a gabion project will be much less compared to a traditional alternative.

Cons of gabion baskets

• Gabions can be more expensive than alternatives &#; such as wooden fencing.
• For larger gabion structures (large walls or big projects) can be time-consuming to install, and may require large equipment.
• Some people don&#;t like the appearance of gabions. However, looking for design-led gabion inspiration can quickly fix this!

What can gabions be used for?

So now you know the main procs and cons of gabions, you may be wondering what they can actually be used for!

The good news is, they can be used for many things, and that&#;s what makes them so popular! We mainly focus on gabion walls, gabion fences and gambion benches on this website &#; but a quick google search will show you plenty of other ways to use gabions too!

We hope this list of gabion pros and cons has been useful!

Hopefully this list of gabion pros and cons has given you lots of ideas and inspiration to begin your own gabion project!

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