Landscaping for Westlake Hills'
Steep Limestone Lots

Three Things Every Westlake
Design Has to Answer

Start With the Trunks,
Then Draw the Walls

Most landscape plans start with a blank yard. In Westlake Hills they start with a survey of the trees. Because a 14-inch oak is effectively permanent, the walls, steps, and patios have to route around root zones rather than through them. That favors steel. A 1/4-inch plate wall is a quarter inch thick where a block wall is 8 to 12 inches, so it fits between trunks and holds grade without a wide footprint or a wide excavation. Read how we size and anchor them in our retaining wall engineering guide.

Steel also answers the second Westlake condition, rock. Posts sit in concrete footers drilled into the limestone, with deadman anchors tying each wall back into the slope. A French drain runs behind every tier so water moves down and out instead of pressing against the plate. Between the walls, marbled concrete slabs become terraces and floating steps, poured in place so they follow the grade exactly.

The result reads as a series of level outdoor rooms stepping down the hill, each one lit from the steel edge at night. Our steel retaining wall service covers the engineering, fabrication, and installation as one in-house job.

Westlake Steel:
An 8-Foot Drop in 12 Days

A Westlake Hills estate on a sloped lot with an 8-foot grade change from the patio to the property line. Red Agave built a tiered system of uncapped 1/4-inch Corten steel retaining walls on subterranean concrete footers, with I-beam posts and deadman anchors. Cantilevered marbled concrete slabs bridge the tiers as floating steps. 24V FCOB lighting runs inside the steel edges, a French drain network carries water off the slope, and specimen agaves hold the planting terraces between wall tiers.

Read the full Westlake Steel case study →

Plants for Thin Soil
and Oak Shade

The sunny terraces between steel walls are agave country. Whale's Tongue, Artichoke, and Agave salmiana 'Green Giant' handle shallow, fast-draining soil and the reflected heat off limestone, and deer walk past them. Our cold-hardy agave guide lists the species that also take Central Texas freezes.

Under the live oak canopy the rules flip: no irrigation spray on the trunks, no grade change over the roots, and plants that take dry shade. Inland sea oats, Turk's cap, cedar sage, and Texas sedge fill those beds without demanding water the trees will not share. Both lists come from our native plants guide for Austin.

Trees, Rock, and Walls

Nearby Areas & Related Services