Building a brick wall can truly be tempting to the DIYer. There's a relaxing element of calm that comes with wall building - with the detail and the repetition of it. While building load-bearing or major interior walls is best handed China cement flower pots factoryover a professional,  there is no reason why you shouldn't turn your hand to a garden wall, or even a brick wall for a shed. A wall at the foot of your garden might be the perfect place to start. While short walls require little more than time, cement mix, sand and lime, bricks, a flat board and a brickie's trowel, water, spray paint or a ball of string, a spirit level, a tape measure and some stakes, if you'd like to attempt putting up a bigger wall you ought to also hire a scaffold tower, so you can access the harder to reach parts of the wall easily and safely. By removing the need to stretch and overreach, you're likely to build a far straighter and truer wall. Check your council's building regulations before building a wall over 2 metres tall. Before you start setting up your scaffold tower, you need to lay your vital foundation. Ensure that the area you're building on has quite hard ground and easy drainage. Mark the piece of land you want tobuild in, using spray paint or string and stakes. With it all pegged out, you need, quite simply, to get digging. If you're building a  two-metre wall, your foundations  need to be 45 centimetres deep by sixty centimetres wide. After you've dug down deep (literally and metaphorically!) put a peg at each end of your trench and mark them at the depth you want the foundations to be. Mix your cement. Foundation cement needs to be 1 part of cement to 5 parts of ballast; when it's prepared, tip it into the trench, even it out, then allow it to set for a day before building on it. When they dry, and assuming you would like tolay a 2m wall, you'll need to set up your scaffold tower. Scaffold towers come in very simple to assemble sets, often with colour-coded pieces. As they're on lockable wheels, access towers can be simply pushed from one end of your wall to the other with all of your equipment still in place, making your new brickie skills far easier. Scaffold tower and foundations ready, check that you have 130 bricks per sq.m of double wall you're building - all walls over 75cm high should be double-thickness, so they're sure. Finally, it's time to prepare your mortar using the cement, sand and lime and water. For protected walls, use 1 part cement, 1 part lime and 6 parts sand; if it's going to be hammered by the elements, your wall should be stronger, so mix 1 part cement , ½ part lime and 4 parts sand. Mix your mortar on a flat board, so you don't mess up your garden. First, pour on half of the sand, then heap on the rest of the ingredients before adding the remaining part of sand and mixing it up with a spade. Make a well in the middle pour in a little water and start mixing with the trowel. Keep adding water until it is wet enough to slide off the trowel, but still keeps its shape when you make a hole in it. Mortar only lasts for a couple of hours, so don't make too much! Finally, it's time to start actually laying the bricks! Lay a brick laterally at the ends of your foundation and wrap a piece of twine between then, so you have a guide; scoop up a trowel of mortar, dash it next to the first brick, and lay a brick on top of it with the frog facing up (the frog is the depressed side of the brick- not a small amphibian!). Your first brick is laid. Do the same again with the scoop of mortar into the foundation, then scrape some mortar on the end of the next brick and place it next to the one you have already laid. Gently tap each brick down with the end of your trowel, so that they are level with the twine (also use a spirit level) and remove any excess mortar that has squeezed out the sides. Repeat until you have put down two lines of bricks next to each other the entire length of your foundations. The next consideration is which bond you
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would like - the Flemish or English bond - each is great at holding up your wall; the choice is up to you what you like in a wall. Build your wall up to a metre from the ground, then it's time to drag your tower into centre stage. Safely sitting on the scaffold tower supporting you at exactly the right height, you'll find a rhythm and drift into your DIYer's happy place as you slap on the mortar and pile on brick after brick. All of a sudden you'll be bragging about how fit you are because you use a scaffold tower -- next to your first home-built wall, tapping your foot happily on the scaffold tower platform and deciding where you can build the next wall!