Gabion Baskets

Very easy. No DIY experience is necessary. The cages are delivered flat-packed. To put them together, you simply lift up the corners and attach them using helicoils. It takes approximately 2–5 minutes per cage.

You will need four helicoils to connect the corners. Choose five if you also want to use a helicoil to close the lid. However, most people use the free lacing wire included with every order to close the lid.

Helicoils are sold in lengths of 1m. If the height of your cage does not match, you will need to cut the helicoil to size so that it fits correctly.

• Assembly: Every order includes free lacing wire to connect the corners and lid, but most of our customers choose helicoils or clips to speed up assembly.
• Filling: Gabion stone is suitable for projects that require drainage, such as retaining walls. If your project does not require drainage, it is possible to fill with many types of material, including bricks, wood, glass and recycled bottles.
• Drainage: If you are retaining earth, you should place a layer of geotextile between the basket and the earth. This will help prevent the soil from clogging up inside the cage.
• Bulging: If your cages have a wire diameter of 3mm or 4mm and you would like to maintain a straight edge, you will need to carefully fill your basket with interlocking stones and select one or more of the following options:

1. Backfilling panel – inserted into the middle of the cage. It will reduce the pressure against the external wall caused by the stone. They can also help to save money by backfilling the basket with non-decorative material such as rubble.
2. Corner braces – will brace the corners together, reducing bulging caused by stone putting pressure against the outer wall.
3. Internal bracing – will brace the front and back, reducing bulging caused by the stone putting pressure from the inside. Internal braces can be made using the free bracing wire that is included with each order.

On every product page, our ‘Frequently Bought Together’ section automatically calculates the essential and time-saving accessories for your cage. Please watch the video at the top of this answer for more information.

In most cases, orders under 100kg are sent shrink-wrapped and delivered by DX courier. Orders over 100kg are usually sent on a pallet. We box accessories and smaller purchases and send them via DPD.

Once the order has been picked up from our Burton-on-Trent location, you will receive email and text notifications from the courier with the scheduled day and time for delivery.  For more information, please visit our delivery page.

All orders are sent flat-packed. To install, simply remove the wrapping, unfold and connect the corners together.  Please find examples of customer parcels in our warehouse waiting for pickup below:

Use standard gabion baskets and angle each one slightly against the next, like slices of a cake. Place the first basket, then set the next one beside it so the backs touch and the fronts fan out to follow your curve. This leaves a small triangular gap between each pair of baskets. Join the touching corners with helicoils, fill the baskets with stone, and fill the triangular gaps with stone too. To give the top a neat, closed finish, cut a small piece of mesh panel to cover each gap and fix it with lacing wire. Shorter baskets (45cm or 97.5cm long) give a tighter, smoother curve. See our step-by-step guide to curved walls.

Galfan is a zinc-aluminium alloy coating: 95% zinc, 5% aluminium and a trace of mischmetal. It protects steel wire from corrosion better than standard galvanising (BBA Certificate 05/4215, Section 8.4). All of our gabion baskets are made from high-tensile steel wire Galfan-coated to BS EN 10244-2:2009 (Class A). Our PVC-coated gabions add a grey polymer coating over the Galfan for extra protection.

See our Standards page for the full specification and certificates.

It depends on the coating, the wire thickness and where the gabions are used. These figures come from BBA Certificate 05/4215:

• Galfan-coated baskets, mild inland conditions: over 70 years for 3mm wire, and over 80 years for 4mm and 5mm wire.
• PVC-coated: an expected life of 120 years in dry land-retaining walls. The BBA recommends coated mesh for sea water, polluted sites or anywhere conditions are uncertain, so PVC-coated is our choice for coastal and waterside projects.

If you’re comparing suppliers, it’s worth asking for the BBA certificate number and the coating class. You can see ours on our Standards page.

• The structure is lower than 1.5m tall
• The structure is retaining flat earth
• The structure is not retaining heavy loads such as roads or buildings
• The ground does not have a lot of groundwater

You will need a civil engineer’s design if any of these apply:

• The structure is taller than 1.5m
• The structure is retaining sloped earth
• The structure is retaining heavy loads such as roads or buildings
• The ground has a lot of groundwater

Pro Installation Tip: When building a retaining wall, step or lean the baskets back into the retained slope at a 6° angle (1:10 batter). This uses gravity to resist earth pressure and prevents the wall from leaning forward over time.

If in doubt, we recommend checking your project with a civil engineer.

For more detailed information, see our guide to designing and installing a wall or use our wall builder at the top of this page to help build and design a retaining or freestanding wall.

For most garden retaining walls, you do not need a poured concrete base. Gabion baskets are flexible, free-draining structures. Simply dig away loose topsoil down to firm ground, level the area, and lay a compacted 10-30cm (for walls up to 1.5m) or 30-50cm (over 1.5m) sub-base of MOT Type 1 or hardcore to stop the baskets settling unevenly over time.  See our guide to building freestanding and retaining walls for detailed information or use our wall builder.

Low projects of 1m or less on firm, level ground, with no heavy loads behind them, can be placed straight onto the ground, though a compacted base gives the best long-term result. See our wall rules for depths, heights and when you need an engineer.

Yes. A popular cost-saving method is “face-packing”: hand-stack attractive, angular stone along the visible front face, then backfill the interior and rear with recycled concrete or crushed brick rubble. Ensure all fill material is larger than the 75x75mm mesh aperture or place smaller rubble into porous rubble bags.

Both layouts are used, and our wall builder lets you design either.

• Staggered (running bond): the vertical joints are offset between layers, like brickwork. Some engineers specify this for retaining walls, as it spreads the load across neighbouring baskets.
• In line (stack bond): baskets sit directly on top of each other for clean vertical lines. Many engineer-designed walls are built this way, and it’s popular for garden walls, feature walls and cladding.

Whichever layout you choose, fill the baskets with angular stone and join every basket securely to the ones above, below and beside it, as BBA Certificate 05/4215 requires. If your wall needs an engineer (over 1.5m, sloping ground, heavy loads or a lot of groundwater), follow their drawings for the layout. See more real in-line and staggered walls.