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| BEFORE |
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| WORKING ON SMALL STONE WALL |
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| YOU CAN SEE WALL TAKING SHAPE |
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| BLUE STONE WALKWAY |
Transform My Home
As you can see from the before picture there really was not any landscaping to speak of, a row of 8 foot high yew hedges along the street, a 50 foot blue spruce, two overgrown rhododendrons and a lollipop shaped upright yew. The upright yew is gone in these photos and the rest will follow later. In the place where the yew was I am built a 2 foot high field stone wall that contains a planting bed. The stones are all native, meaning they come from this area. Since the wall is not really holding anything back as in a retaining wall, the stones are just dry stacked. These stones are not the easiest to work with since they come in various shapes and sizes, thus making it harder to have them tight together. It is pretty simple to use a flat stone that you just stack on top of one another, I like a challenge though. The first thing I do is run a level string line from one end to the other to ensure a level wall. You want to dig down a bit to get the first course of stones below grade and work up from there. I try to have the flattest surface of the stone facing out and then it is just a matter of picking the right stone. I like to lay all my stones out as you can see in the picture so I can look at the wall and then choose the stone which will best fit into that space. You can always use a mason chisel and hammer to "adjust" the stone if necessary. Safety glasses are must. I then try to use any flat stones on the top as sort of a cap if you will. The front of the house is completely shade all day so the plants I chose for inside this bed are all hosta varieties. I will get into the plant material I have used later on.
The next thing I worked on was the blue stone walk. Along with the field stone wall, blue stone is very common here in Connecticut and is used widely in landscaping. Previously the walk was concrete which I jack hammered out and brought to Tilcon for recycling at no charge. The walk is about two feet wide with a random pattern of stone size so it is not so boring. Preparation is everything when putting in a walk. You need to dig down at least eight inches and remove that material if you don't want the stones to heave in the winter. I add six inches of process gravel, a base material with large and small pieces of stone, which gets packed down hard with a tamper. Then comes two inches of stone dust, a very fine crushed stone material, which is lightly packed. Of course make sure your surface is level, again I like to use a string from one end to the other as a guide. The blue stone is not going to be completely level on the bottom so that is why you don't pack the stone dust, this allows you to manipulate the stone and add or remove some stone dust to level everything. I usually jump on the stone to set it and to make sure it does not rock up and down. I leave about a half inch gap between the stone and this gets filled with stone dust. You simply pour some stone dust in the gap then I use a small blunt piece of wood to tamp in down. You will have to do this a couple times and then I spray it down with water to settle the material. After a couple day I usually notice it has settled a bit more so I add a little more stone dust. The blue stone comes in many sizes but if you do need to cut it this can be accomplished with a masonry blade installed on a circular saw. Safety glasses and a dust mask are a must. Make sure the saw you use is not your favorite because the dust will eventually destroy it!!
All the blue stone came from Sanford & Hawley in Unionville. They have a very nice selection sizes and colors. Believe it or not blue stone is not always blue, there are various shades of blues and greys. You can get it for around $6.00 per square foot.
Blue Stone Supplier
I get all my base material and stone dust from Dunning Sand & Gravel in Farmington. They have a wide assortment of stone, soil and mulch. Delivery is available.
Base Material and Stone
I hope you got something out of this and if you have any questions just ask in the comment section. Sign up to follow my blog to see me transform this old house.
