Marana, AZ — northwest of Tucson, where the caliche starts
Dry-stack and mortared retaining walls. Paver patios. Stone veneer. BBQ islands. Built on a base that's been dug, screened, and compacted for the ground we work on. AZ ROC #331785.
Castro's Masonry & Landscaping
Castro's Masonry & Landscaping
Castro's Masonry & Landscaping
About Castro's
Most yards we walk in Marana have a wall problem before they have a lawn problem. A slope sliding into the driveway. A retaining wall someone stacked dry without batter, leaning forward an inch a year. A paver patio settling into a soft spot where the base was never compacted. The plants on top of all of that look fine — until they don't.
We lead with stone. Dry-stack and mortared retaining walls. Paver patios cut for the actual cobble in the ground, not a textbook base. Stone veneer on block. BBQ islands and fire pits built to last past the warranty on whatever's bolted to them. Once the hard stuff is solid, the landscaping follows — DG, decorative gravel, the irrigation runs, the plant pockets cut into the wall.
We're licensed AZ ROC #331785, Specialty Dual. Marana-based since 2020. The crew is small and the work is the kind you can walk past in five years and not see a problem.
A retaining wall is concrete-and-stone math, not a landscape decision. We treat it that way.
— Bryan, Castro's Masonry & Landscaping
What we build — Marana + NW Tucson
Retaining walls first because they hold everything else up. Pavers second because that's where the yard is used. Veneer, BBQ, and fire pits where the design calls for them. Landscape follows the hardscape.
Slopes that move. Walls that lean. Beds that wash out in monsoon. We cut the footing, set the base, build with proper batter, and run weep drainage so the wall stays where you put it. Dry-stack for the rustic look, mortared CMU with veneer where structure is the priority.
Compacted base, screeded sand, polymeric joint sand. The boring stuff that makes a patio still level in year ten. Marana cobble gets screened out before the base goes in.
Garden walls, perimeter walls, courtyard walls. CMU structure with stone veneer where the budget calls for it. Straight courses, clean joints, weep at the base.
Built-in BBQ surrounds in stone, brick, or veneered block. Wood and gas fire pits sized for the patio they sit on. Designed around your existing hardscape, not stamped from a kit.
Caliche cut where the wall or patio needs to sit. Cobble screened out. Crushed stone compacted in lifts. The work nobody sees, the work that decides whether the rest holds.
Decomposed granite, decorative gravel, native plant pockets cut into the wall, the irrigation runs tied to the bed lines we just built. The yard finishes after the stone is set, not the other way around.
Dry-stack — the work most yards already need
A retaining wall is two things stacked together — the stone you see and the work you don't. Most of the failures we tear out on the NW side of Tucson are the same story: stone set on loose soil, no batter, no drain pipe. The wall looked fine the day it was built. Then the first monsoon came.
The fix
Cut the footing. Lean the wall back. Drain the pressure.
Three details that decide whether a wall lasts five years or fifty. Every Castro's Masonry & Landscaping build runs the same checklist.
Most of the retaining walls we get called out to rebuild were originally built without one or more of these details. The stone looks the same. The work behind it isn't.
What's actually under your yard
Marana ground reads soft on the surface and turns concrete-hard about a foot down. Most paver and retaining-wall failures we get called out to rebuild trace back to a base that didn't account for what's actually under the yard — calcium-carbonate hardpan, surface cobble that never got screened, soil layers that were compacted in one fat lift instead of three thin ones. Castro's Masonry & Landscaping cuts the base the way the ground asks for it.
Typical NW-Tucson yard, profile drawn to depth. Paver patios sit on the screened sand layer at top. Wall footings cut through the caliche band where the structure demands it.
Note 01
Caliche is the footing decision
The calcium-carbonate hardpan under most NW-Tucson yards usually sits 6 to 18 inches down. Where the wall has to bear weight, we cut through it cleanly so the footing has uniform bearing — not a half-broken caliche shelf that fails under load.
Note 02
Cobble has to come out first
Marana ground is shot through with cobble — fist-sized rounded river rock from the Santa Cruz drainage. Left in the base, it acts like a marble bed under a patio. Screened out, the compacted base actually compacts.
Note 03
Compaction in lifts, not all at once
Crushed-stone footing layers get compacted in 4-inch lifts. One thick lift looks the same on top, settles different in year two. The boring detail nobody sees that decides whether the patio still reads level the day you sell the house.
How a stone job runs
Tell us the address and what you're looking at. A photo of the slope, the failing wall, or the patio that's settling saves a visit.
We come out, walk the area, probe for caliche depth, and ask the questions that change the price — drainage, access, finish stone, base depth.
Line-item estimate texted within a day or two. Stone, base, drainage, labor — not a lump number.
Most walls and patios start within two to four weeks of a signed estimate. Larger projects get a date once material is staged.
We don't leave until the site is broom-clean, the haul-off is on the truck, and the wall reads level the way you walked it.
That’s it. No portals, no logins — a phone call or an email is all it takes.
Licensed + disclosed
Specialty Dual scope — masonry and landscape, both on the same active license. Verify any time at the Arizona Registrar of Contractors. The license is the baseline; the work is what holds it up.
What customers say
Built a 40-foot dry-stack retaining wall along the back slope. Crew dug the footing right, set the drain line, and the wall hasn't moved through two monsoons. Stone selection was good and the cap line is dead straight.
Paver patio out back — 350 square feet, plus a stone-veneered BBQ island. Bryan walked the base prep with me before he poured anything. A year in, still level, still tight at the joints.
Two CMU garden walls with stone veneer, plus a flagstone walkway between them. Quiet crew, on time, cleaned up every day. Price came in where they estimated. Already booked them for the front yard next.
Old retaining wall was leaning and the soil behind it was washing into the driveway. They tore it out, cut a proper footing, rebuilt with the right batter and a drain pipe at the base. Should've called them first instead of the guy who built it the first time.
Fire pit in the back patio, stone-veneer surround. Looks like it's been there since the house was built. Bryan listened to what we wanted and didn't try to upsell us into something we didn't need.
Trabajo limpio, gente seria. La pared se ve perfecta y el patio quedó como queríamos. Recomendados.
Recent work — Marana + NW Tucson
Honest pricing
Stonework is priced per job, not per square foot — every wall, patio, and BBQ island gets a line-item estimate after we walk the site, probe for caliche depth, and look at access and drainage. No lump-sum numbers, no surprise change orders mid-build.
Free walkthroughs in Marana, Continental Ranch, Dove Mountain, Gladden Farms, Picture Rocks, Oro Valley, and NW Tucson. Cash, check, or card.
Call (520) 599-9896Questions — Castro's Masonry & Landscaping
Yes. AZ ROC #331785, Specialty Dual, active and in good standing since 2020. Licensed for both masonry and landscape work.
Call or text Bryan
— Castro's Masonry & Landscaping
Stonework first. Landscape that follows. Marana, AZ. Hablamos español.