Stones and Bones

You often hear people mention the phrase the "bones of the garden." It's basically used to refer to the garden elements that provide some sort of structure. Many people refer to evergreen plantings as the bones since they add structure and don't lose their leaves when the weather changes. Structures like arbors and garden shed could also be bones of the garden since they are more permanent fixtures that you can build the garden around. One other element that I like to think of as part of the bones of the garden is stone. Stone can do all kinds of things from building walls to creating patios or simply outline a garden border as in the picture below.

My stone border in the sideyard does two things:

1. It defines the garden space between my yard and my neighbor's yard (the border).
2. It separates the grass pathway from the garden.

The stone is an element that is always there, doesn't change, and won't float away in any May floods!

Stone is often used for surfaces to walk on like in these stepping stones.  They aren't set into the ground yet but will be soon once the weather warms up a tad! I like to add stepping stones into the grassy areas to allow people to walk through the yard without getting their feet wet in the morning dew (that's usually just me though!) It also helps to formalize the pathways.

Stone bones can also be used as decorative elements in statues, water features, or in a plain ole rock stuck in a garden bed! What bones are in your garden?

Garden Design Ideas: Create a Focal Point

A few years ago I helped my parents build together a focal point in their yard. It is made of two concentric circles of decorative concrete retaining wall, with the center circle taller than the outer one. The circles serve as a central location in the yard for some garden pathways. In the center ring is a weeping cherry tree that provides beautiful spring flowers. The outer circle is home to mums in the fall and often holds pansies. You could easily plant any type of annuals or perennials in the circles. A focal point could be anything from walls and fences to fountains and trellises. It would be fairly simple to create an elegant fountain or water feature in place of the weeping cherry tree. The sky is the limit! Just use your imagination.

Patio Tour Continued: Next to the House

Today I'm back to talking about the patio. I've been adding the finishing touches to the area just in time for cold weather! We'll still be able to use it since cold weather in Tennessee tends to be tolerable weather. (I still use the grill even in the wintertime) Please ignore the overflowing trashcan in the background but do pay attention to the planting bed I built earlier in the summer next to the garage. I never got around to blogging about it but here it is. It is a two bed system made of landscape timbers. The top bed is filled with gravel and used as a spot for the trash can and the other bed is for plants. An arborvitae that we brought back from my brother-in-law's wedding is now serving as a screen. Once it fills out we won't see the trash can at all, or at least that is my goal.




Next to the house is our potting bench. I put it together using scrap lumber and an old wooden pallet. I have a few adjustments to do on the potting bench that I'll blog about later. Between the house and the patio we put a decorative gravel mixed with a couple larger natural stones. This area was a haven for weeds before I cleaned it out. I layered the area with landscape fabric then covered with the stone. The gutter was redirected into a corrugated pipe that goes underneath the deck and out into the yard. My goal was to make the area low maintenance and keep the water away from the foundation. I think that it is actually much better than it was before! Of course I might be a little prejudiced.

Raised Bed Vegetable Garden with Stone Borders

It's taken me all summer to get to it but I'm finally taking the first steps toward changing the vegetable garden to the parterre layout. I had some of the blocks sitting around for months now and others I borrowed from our patio sidewalk expansion which I just haven't had time to get to this summer.  Using the stone for the border is more expensive than wood but will last much longer.  

For a comparison take the $2.50 cost per foot of these stone blocks and compare it with a piece of lumber somewhere around $5-6 for a 10 foot piece.  That comes to about $0.50-$0.60 per foot which makes the stone about 5 times more expensive.  The big advantage is that it won't ever rot and it looks pretty good!

So far I only have one small portion of the raised bed vegetable garden put together.  Even it still needs several more blocks placed to complete the beds.   These beds are going to be planted ASAP with some more winter greens.  Pak choy sounds good and maybe more spinach.

Ever tried potatoes in the fall?  This one was a volunteer in a large nursery pot I was using for a weeding bucket.  I'm tempted to wrap the top area where you see the metal stakes in plastic to create a little greenhouse effect. I'm theorizing here but I might just be able to get some potatoes by December.  We'll see!  The neat thing about potatoes in a pot is that when they are ready all you need to do is dump the pot to get the potatoes.

How's your vegetable garden growing?

A Stepping Stone Pathway (Backyard Remodel Part 2)

With every project comes some challenges. The biggest challenge for our backyard remodel and patio project was what to do with the septic line area since one of the most important things to remember with any major project is to avoid the utilities as best as you can. Unfortunately in our case the builder of our home did not put the porch and septic line in the best possible location for our plans. The steps from the porch led directly over the septic clean out pipe. I mentioned a few days ago about the step/landing I built to bridge that space but we also needed to deal with the area over the line itself. We had a two-fold problem: 1) No hard or permanent surface should ever cover the septic line in case it needed to be accessed and 2) I didn't want to mow into an odd shaped and small area.

The solution was simple and makes sense (aren't those are the best solutions!): Cover the area with an easy to remove mulch and use stepping stones to make a convenient walking pathway.


The step is 100% removable and so are the stones. If we ever needed to get access to the line all we would need to do is move the step, move the stones, move the mulch and landscape fabric, then dig to get to the line. Ten to fifteen minutes of work would be all that's needed to accomplish the moving.


Patios and Pigtails


The stones themselves are not extremely heavy. The total weight for all six stones was 180 pounds with the largest one weighing in at 49 pounds. That would be the one that my daughter is standing on in the picture above. They were on a pick pile at our local landscape supply place for $.20 a pound. I tried to find the stepping stones that matched the cobblestone patio the best and still maintained a natural look.


Taking it in Stride


The stones were inspected after the initial placement and determined to have been placed at too long of a stride. Adjustments were made and then a secondary inspection was conducted which was subsequently passed. The stride is perfect for those who are 5'2" tall but a little short for those of us who are 5'9". Compromise, just another step to having a happy home!

What Did I Bring Home Last Weekend?

Last weekend I brought home a few things from my in-laws house. I'm very fortunate to be able to take cuttings of anything they have around or to be able to gather rocks for edging in our garden. So what did I bring home last weekend? I've already told you about one thing, the pyracantha cuttings. I took 14 cuttings from their Firethorn or "orange berry bush." Once they root I'll show you a little more about them.

I also brought home a few cuttings of their Japanese dappled willow. I found at a plant swap in the spring that these are very popular so I thought I would make a few more plants. I also need a few more to replace some that died due to the dry conditions this summer (it didn't help that they got run over by a lawnmower!)

I brought home another shipment of rocks for edging. These rocks are in a newer garden area along the backside of our house.



I also brought home 3 'Little Jane' magnolia (Magnolia liliiflora) saplings. They were volunteers that popped up in their front garden. I'm not sure where they'll go yet but I'll find a place. For now they are potted up on the back porch where I can monitor and water them easily. Little Jane is a deciduous magnolia that grows somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 feet tall.

Little Jane Magnolia (Magnolia liliifola)

That's not all! I planted 4 native dogwood trees in our backyard that I brought home from my in-law's garden. These were volunteers like the magnolias and were even in the same garden. They really needed moved since they were taking over their front garden area. I suspect that the are either gray dogwoods (Cornus racemosa) or maybe rough-leaved dogwoods (Cornus drummondii). Take a look and see what you think. I planted them along a ditch in the backyard to hopefully help with soil erosion. Over time they should grow large enough to provide us with some privacy in the very back corner of our yard.

Dogwoods

Paving Stones for Pathway Entrances

One of my recent projects was to complete two entrances to our front sidewalk from the lawn.  The openings were already there but didn't have any definition - or at least any good definition that a person walking along would see a clear path to the sidewalk.  I had some paving stones in the backyard set aside for another project (an extension to our patio) that I haven't had time to get to yet so I thought they could be used for these short sidewalk entrances.  I spent a little time with the assistance of my 2 year old son and 4 year old daughter clearing our the weeds and clumps of grass that were in the way.  They had a good time moving the weeds to their wheelbarrow and dumping them!

Then I laid out the stones.  Some were 6"x9" and others were 6"x6" which allowed me to create rectangular shapes with sets of 4 paving stones.  Ideally I would have also laid out some sort of landscaping fabric to keep weeds down then put sand over top to level it but I didn't have either of those handy.  I ended up just laying it down on bare level soil.  Any stones that were not level were lifted and fixed up underneath to level them either by adding soil or removing soil.  Simple!

Powis Castle artemisia and Sweet Potato Vine next to Paving Stones

Then I merged the stones with a larger stepping stone that I had used there before.  I put the stepping stone in line with the stone borders in the front garden area and completely merged the sidewalk garden and the front porch garden borders with a slight curve.

Clara Curtis Mums are to the right of the path

It took about and hour and a half to complete this project from start to finish.  Of course I had a couple good helpers!

Now the sidewalk entrances are ready for walking!

My 7 Year Old Daughter and 2 Year Old Son

Stepping Stones in the Garden

I really like using rock and stone in the garden. I've used rocks and stone for two main uses: as stepping stones or as borders. I prefer natural stones that have a rough hewn look. I like the irregular forms, the variety, and the general natural quality of the stones. The problem is the perfect flat stones are not readily available or are very expensive. Being on the cheap side I went a couple other routes to add some stepping stones to the garden.

The easiest thing to do to add stepping stones is to buy the cheap concrete stones from the box stores. They definitely look manufactured but the price of $0.99 per stepping stone makes it worth it!

Stepping Stones to traverse a garden - garden incomplete...

I've used them in a few places to traverse gardens and to construct miniature pathways through them. A definite plus when you have a long garden you don't want to walk around or children who like to play in the pathways!
 
I've also used them in a small patio alongside out garden shed. The stones aren't leveled yet but you can get a general idea on how it will look when finished.

Stepping stones to make a mini-patio - not finished yet!

Of course to get a more natural look you can easily make your own stepping stones. There are all kinds of recipes from hypertufa to just different concrete mixed but I chose the easiest route possible - cheap 40 lb. bags of high strength concrete. I mixed the concrete according to directions and poured it into my forms.

Homemade stepping stones.

 
If you look closely you will notice that the forms are actually cardboard boxes that have been cut into 2 inch tall sections. They won't hold the concrete in by themselves but when you dig the hole to inlay the stepping stones and place the cardboard form inside you can backfill soil against the forms to make the stepping stones nice and square. Once I remove the forms the stones should all have a solid rectangular shape. You can use any strong cardboard to do this and make all kinds of shapes. It's a great use for all those diaper boxes!

My son at 2 months!

As you can see we have a good reason for going through a lot of diaper boxes!

Cobblestone Patio Project Update 4

The cobblestone patio is close to finished, very close, but not quite done yet. I had hoped to have the it done before my daughter's third birthday (this past Wednesday) but Fay had other plans. The rains delayed my work for several days both while it was raining and afterward since I had to wait for the sun to dry out the sand. We really needed the rain so I wasn't too disappointed.

Here's a look at where the patio was as of Monday morning. I've cleaned up the step landing and it is now nice and flat. The paving stones are all laid out and leveled except for the ones on the right side of the picture that will eventually be a pathway that turns out into the yard. I'm still not sure exactly how I want to complete that area right now. I'm leaning toward shortening it a little and converting it into a mulched walkway. On the right side of the patio (toward the backyard) I've put together a small landing for the grill that still needs finished. It has the paving stones but they haven't been set with the sand yet.

To the left of the grill I spaced one of the mugo pines I picked up off the discount racks a few weeks ago. I made sure there was plenty of space between the grill and the pine since the heat from the grill could potentially damage the pine. If you look closely you can see my newspaper sticking out from the mulch. It will get covered when I finish mulching the bed.



Here's the right side of the grill landing where I planted the other mugo pine. Behind the mugo pine you can see a glimpse at my small and measly herb garden. The big plan I had for my herb garden layout was never accomplished, there were just too many other things to do this year. Maybe next year. But this little crop of herbs has been good enough for our needs. We planted it with basil, oregano, lemon balm, and rosemary.




What's left to do you ask? Or maybe you didn't but I'll tell you anyway. I need to fill the corners with specially cut stones, finish sweeping sand into the cracks, mulch around the garden beds, and plant a Japanese maple in the raised bed. Then maybe we'll get to enjoy some spiced hot apple cider outside on the cobblestone patio on a cool autumn day.

Previous Patio Project Posts:

• The Beginning of My Patio Project
• Patio Project: Update 2
• Cobblestone Patio Project Progress Report (Update 3)

The Birdbath Garden August Expansion

August isn't really the best time to expand a garden. It's hot, not much water, and usually the nurseries don't have a whole lot of nice plants to choose from since they are waiting on the fall stock to arrive. Even though I wouldn't recommend buying and planting plants right now if you promise the plants that you will water them when needed and won't be leaving them for any extended lengths of time then they may allow you to plant them. Such is the case with my new friend 'Diablo' (Physocarpus opulifolius). Diablo is a ninebark and a pretty neat one at that! Ninebark is native to North American and has white flowers in the summer.  Because I purchased this ninebark impulsively (I've wanted one for a while and just found a nursery nearby that sold them) I spent a few days figuring out where to put it. I finally found a spot on one side of the birdbath garden that I could expand where I paired it up with a couple 'Powis Castle' Artemisias I propagated from cuttings. The silver and purple look is one I really enjoy! They're little now but they will grow fast!

 

I also settled on a spot for yet another big rock as a low bench. What do you think about planting plants in the heat of summer?

Cobblestone Patio Project Progress Report

Here's look at where I'm at with my cobblestone patio project. It's still not quite finished but I do see a light at the end of the tunnel. It's been a couple weeks since my last update on the patio and my progress has been very intermittent. Last week I woke up on Wednesday morning nearly immobilized with a terrible back pain that eventually subsided but took days out of my project time. It felt like I pinched a nerve or had the worst back cramp you could possibly imagine. I've been able to get some quality work done this past week which is one reason why my posting and commenting on blogs (both this one and other garden bloggers) has been erratic.

Now that I have my excuses out of the way I'll give you a quick tour now of where the patio is and what still needs to be done!

When you come around the side of the house you will see and entry sidewalk. This part of the project will be finished next year as we add another length of it but for now a three foot length and a step down onto the main patio will greet the patio guests. I roughly (OK very roughly) laid out the paving stones in one possible arrangement before I set them in stone (pun alert!). To the right of the sidewalk will be a raised planting bed edged with stone. Into that bed I plan to place a Japanese maple and a few other plants to be determined later.


Here's a glimpse of the patio with the paving stones not quite set yet. I still need to work sand in between the cracks to stabilize them. I'll recover the edges of the patio with soil and hopefully plant a thyme around the edges of the patio. That will have to wait until I find the time and have the thyme!


Here you can see some areas that are set with sand in the cracks. The areas that are set are very solid.


In the center is where the planting bed will be and to the right will be the sidewalk that will extend to our garage door sidewalk. It's only one level now but next year we'll add a second tier.


I've got a few corners to finish up. I like the rounded edges since they make it seem a little less formal but they do require a little more finagling. I still have to carve the individual paving stones to fit the remaining gaps on the edges. Fortunately the stones aren't too difficult to size up but it will take a little time.


The patio is taking a little longer than I planned, but don't all projects? I should have it finished by the weekend if I take a few minutes each day to work on it. I can't wait for it to be complete!

We Rocked This Week!

Well the end of my rock posts has come...for now! Here's a quick summary of what we did this week with rocks. Feel free to take a look back if you missed anything. If you rocked this week tell me about it!

• Sunday (August 16, 2009): I'm a Fan of Rocks
• Monday (August 17, 2009): And the Rock is...
• Tuesday (August 18, 2009): Rocky Borders
• Wednesday (August 19, 2009): A Natural Stone Bench  
• Thursday (August 20, 2009): The Stone Pathway that Grows

And so ends Rock Week in the garden!

The Stone Pathway that Grows

Can you believe I reached the end of my stone? I emptied the truck the day I brought the stones home but only yesterday did I finished my stone projects. Please keep in mind that finished is a relative word since many of my projects are ongoing. You might remember a little while back I added a few stones to begin a stepping stone pathway between our deck garden and the birdbath garden. I used many of the large flat stones from my latest rock hunting excursion to add to the pathway. Unfortunately I ran out of stone to complete the path but not before I managed to complete a large section of it leading from our patio to the side yard (AKA Eventual Shady Side Corridor).

I've annotated the picture to help you see the areas around the pathway better.  If you follow the pathway it leads you along the house all the way over to the side where the arbor stands. There is a gap between the newly laid stones and the arbor itself that I'll fill in over time. You will also notice in the picture that there is a very large stone just in front of the viburnum. I don't have a close-up picture but I can tell you it resembles a very large home plate in shape. I situated it so that it would be a good stone to branch off with a second pathway to the right. The first pathway and the (eventual) second pathway will circle around the viburnum and connect near the stone bench in front of the birch tree.

I dug each of the stones into the ground so that the riding lawnmower would have no problems traveling over them. I tested it last night and while the stones might have been a little bumpy to mow over (most natural stones are) there were no issues. Encouraging a low growing ground cover might be an option for the future.

I followed a few simple steps to set the stones:

• I laid the stones down with the flattest side up since it would be the best side to walk on.
• I spaced them out to the desired distance. In this case they matched my normal walking pace. (Anyone else is out of luck!)
• I used my shovel to cut an outline of the hole around the rock. Then moved the rock.
• I cleaned out the hole of sod and left loose soil underneath to make setting the stone easy.
• I replaced the stone and filled and holes along the sides with more loose soil. 

Another option would be setting the stones then filling in with topsoil but since I didn't want to change the grade of the land or take a trip to get topsoil setting the stones in the ground was the best option. But I also think that digging in the stones is less work!

A Natural Stone Bench

Yet another use for my pickup load of stone the other day is a bench for the little people. No I'm not talking fairies, elves, or garden gnomes but my two girls.  Of course anyone else who might happen upon the bench and need to take a load off their feet is welcome to do so.  I was lucky to find the main bench stone among all those other stones. As you can see it's very thick (around 5-6 inches) and long enough (around 3'-3'6") to be perfect for a small bench. I needed two other stones that were of sufficient height to raise the main seat up and keep it level. Since the ground slopes to the right I selected one that was slightly thicker for the right side while another smaller one was selected for the left side.

 

One of my concerns was that the stones be stable enough that neither of my children would get hurt by a rolling stone. I shimmed up the underside of each side stone with smaller flat rocks until the bench seat was set with only a minor wobble. To test it I jumped on it a couple times, stood on it and wobbled back and forth, and of course sat on it for a couple minutes to watch the birdbath garden. Then I had my oldest daughter test it. She sat, wobbled, and jumped too while I stood next to her just in case and we declared it safe. Since the bench stone weighs more than she does I highly doubted that anything she could do would move it.

I've worked the bench in so that it smoothly fits in with the stone borders around the area, at least as smoothly as rough hewn stone can be. It rests underneath a birch tree that was new this spring and beside a beautyberry which is also a 2009 addition. My hope is that the underside of the bench will serve as a toad refuge since they like to hide underneath rocks and I will always welcome insect and slug predators to my garden! Perhaps I'll nickname the bench, "The Toad Stool". We'll see!

Rocky Borders

From my rock haul the other day I managed to finish edging a couple locations in our yard and get a pretty good start on some others. I love using the rocks for my garden borders. Rocks look natural (because they are), they define the garden beds (because they create an edge), and the weed wacker can be used right up against them to make some very clean edges (because I can!) without risking harming the plants .

One of the first locations I put the rocks in was the front sidewalk garden. That bed was completely without a border before and now has an edge all along the side with the grass.



I replaced a few of the original rocks I used in the front garden with different ones that I think have more character. The one on the left is my favorite. It has a nice round shape that will look very cool once the phlox grows in all around it. The one in the upper right has a round flat top that hangs over the rock next to it and the one in the bottom right I like because of it's thickness and consistency. It almost looks like a retaining wall block.

The self-seeding garden also got the stone border treatment, at least on the backside where it joins up with the border garden. I really like having rocks that are large enough to sit on spaced every now and then in the border. It adds a convenient seat for anyone walking by who might want to stop and enjoy a particular angle of the garden. It also makes for a great spot to sit and weed the garden.

With these rocks I edged the entire length of the border garden except for about 5-7 feet. I'll have to go on another rock hunt soon to finish it all up.

I still have a couple other uses for all that rock to show you. Stay tuned for more rock gardening!

And the Rock is...

Quite a few people chimed in to offer their opinion as to what our naturally formed rock sculpture looks like. There were a range of responses from prehistoric and mythic reptiles to fuzzy and furry creatures of the woodlands and prairies. What I learned is that identifying what a rock resembles is a lot like naming the clouds, every one sees them differently. Let's take a look at the responses before I tell you what I thought it looked like!

Gardenbre and Shady Gardener both considered a Hippopotamus as a likely option. You definitely don't see many hippo sculptures in the garden.

Helen said it resembled a cross between a prairie dog and Godzilla. I don't even want to know how that union came to pass! A lesser known relation to Godzilla, Rockzilla was also known to bring down the neighborhood according to Bonnie.

TC warned not to let the groundhog near my garden, too late! We already have a groundhog we named Murray who hangs out on the hill. So far he's living off the brush and the rotten tomatoes that get thrown his way. Could it be related to the Rock Chuck that Heather suggested? Very possibly...

Nancy considered a beaver and a bear while Darla suggested an animal on its hind legs. I suppose I could get a nice flat rock to stick out behind this rock for a beaver tail.

Wiseacre suggested it resembled a bottle opener...hmm that would make it useful wouldn't it?

A whole bunch of people including Trina (Gardenmom via Twitter), Shady Gardener, Donna, Kylee, and Frances all thought it resembled a dinosaur! They would be in perfect agreement with my wife who said to me after I asked her what she thought it was "I don't know. A dragon, or a dinosaur?" I guess I found my dragon! I'll have to get my Dragon's Blood Sedum planted over here if that's the case. Maybe even a little toy knight to stab it in the side!

What did I think it was?

A penguin of course! The little guy is holding his flippers (wings) in front while praying, it's "The Praying Penguin!" Can you see it?

I'm a Fan of Rocks

The title of this post says it all. If I can move a rock I'll put it somewhere! Thanks to a garden club friend (Evelyn) I found out about a man named Barry who was clearing part of his property so that his wife could have horses. Unfortunately for Barry, and very fortunately for me and several other rock collectors, there are tons of rock on his property. I filled up a truck load with a variety of shapes and sizes of rocks. Some were quite large and were a challenge to move while others were easy to carry in one hand and perfect for garden bed borders.


I anticipated weaving my way through brush trying to locate rocks that were just barely sticking above the surface while dodging chigger infested foliage.  I was prepared for this. A can of bug spray was in the truck, along with more "hole"y gloves, a shovel and a hoe/cultivator to help pry the rocks from the unyielding. I thought I would need all of these items, thankfully I was wrong! Barry had cleared most of the area by turning the rocks over with his tractor. The only challenge was my own physical abilities and how much I could haul in the back of the truck. As you can see I challenged myself!

I'm not quite sure how much rock I managed to haul. I'm estimating it to be about 2-3 pallets worth. Since each pallet would cost at a garden center $150-200 I feel very good about my haul.  Now comes the challenge of situating all the rocks in the right places. Some have already been placed when I want them while others are awaiting the time and attentions of the resident gardener.

Many of the rocks had interesting shapes. Here's one that I thought was more of a sculpture than just a rock. I placed it upright where a 'Black and Blue' Salvia just died. My wife and I have a debate as to what the rock looks like. I won't tell you what either of us think it is until you've given me your perspective.

What do you think this rock looks like?

Project Patio: Update 2

This week we've gotten some serious work done on the patio area but there is quite a lot still to do; isn't there always? Thursday I brought a truckload of sand to cover the gravel. The sand helps when setting the stones in place by creating a soft layer that is easily manipulated for leveling the stones.




Here is how it looks with 250+ paving stones put in place. They are made of concrete and shaped to look like rustic cobblestones. I need to set about 150-200 more paving stones to complete the patio. Some of those stones will need to be cut to fit the irregular shaped corners and curves. That'll be fun!



This was hard work but I had a lot of help from my brother-in-law Matt. Thanks!

Here's the beginning of the patio project.

Yesterday I was Floored

Or rather my garden shed was! I laid down part of the brick flooring that will eventually cover the entire shed floor. You can take a good look at the floor at the Garden Shed page!