sadly I have no stone walls to share. Its on my wish list but realistically will most likely never happen.

I hope this thread hits its limit, and gets continued, because I'm looking forward to seeing more!

Everyone's wall is wonderful, in its own way. Maybe it's just as well I can't put one in now, because I'd never be able to decide what I want, lol.

southcountryguy, your annual garden is great! I don't think anyone here gives a flying fig if it is an annual garden as opposed to a perennial one - we all love to see anything at all in bloom, and in this case, your stonework as well!

Please keep 'em coming! I'm living vicariously through you guys!

;)
Dee

Nice photos!
I'll have to search my iPhotos to see if I have pics that show my stone retention walls...

Man, my first post didn't go through. Since lots of you don't have access to rocks I will show a few more pictures of how I use rocks for edging on other gardens.

Karin that is some very nice work there! Thanks for the compliments. Hopefully in 6 years my place will look even half as good as yours. I can only imagine what you would be able to do here with the vast array of rock and rock types available.

nhbabs I love the way you used those rocks. Next season I want to plant some creepers into my wall just like yours.

Bluebird you acquired one very nice rock wall!

Diggerdee thanks and wish I could send you some rocks.

Here is how I am using rocks for bed edging. Yeahp I go through a lot of whipper snipper cord!

This is my perennial bed with some coleus mixed in.

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The "bulb garden"

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And this is my sunflower/papaver somniferum garden along my shop. I was fortunate another GW member shared some seeds and we are sporting 160 sunflowers of about 60 varieties. Thanks again Ginny!!

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Sorry for the bad lighting but this garden is only completely in sun for a short time late in the afternoon.

Lets see more rock pictures I need some ideas to feed my addiction!!

Karin, my husband is starting to get really nervous. Every time I say to him, "can you just come and look at these pictures..." (yours, lol) he starts to think about his back.

Well, for good reason. There was an incident about three years ago involving a stump he decided to pull out for me, a wheelchair and some crutches. And a small matter of being being bedridden for three whole weeks!

Yes, I can finally relate to that saying, "Youth is wasted on the Young" When I was 22 I had a passing interest in nothing more than window boxes with geraniums. Now it's "watch your knees", "careful with your back", aching fingers, tired bodies... Once in a while I remember to actually sit down outside and enjoy the surroundings but nothing stops my mind from planting 3 more beds, moving that one over there and this one over here and wondering how to balance this tree with that shrub.

Ok I got off tangent here. GREAT rocks, love them all, they add a lovely structure to the whole landscape!

I love all these rock/stone photos. I am a big fan of stacked rock walls, but alas, do not have any.

What I have on my property are BIG rocks. When we built the house all of these rocks were dug up so we saved them so I could build the front gardens around them. The goal was trying to make them look like they were there since the beginning of time, as opposed to being placed and then gardened around.

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We did find 2 pallets of stone for our cottage/vegetable garden so finished the paths with that. (pay no attention to that aster in the path. it is the BEST aster in my garden, so every year it gets to stay!)

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karin, I said it before, but I'll say it again - gorgeous. I can't begin to imagine all the work that required.

nhbabs, love the wall with your plantings! A very rustic feel.

And bluebird, I love the flowers spilling over the wall. I'd love to see your other photo right side up!

Finally, southcountyguy, wow! That annual bed is perfect! Love the rock wall encasing it and I love the mass of flowers - my kind of planting! What are the dark red fkowers right in the center? I'm always on the lookout for that color.

Where I am, I only find small to medium sized stones. I use then to outine the bed, but nothing fancy, that's for sure!

Thyme2dig that is a beautiful yard you have there. Has a very nice feel to it.

a2zmom thanks for the kind words. The ones in the middle are Dianthus, I believe, Dynasty reds (sweet william). Of course, I planted all the seed and lost (kids) the package.

SouthCountyGuy, I have PLENTY of rocks, lol. I just don't have a rock or stone wall. And I don't have either the courage to try to build one, or the money to have it done.

Well, actually, many years ago I did attempt a very little wall, about five feet long, built into the slope at the end of my driveway. It looked good for about a year or two, at which point a truck hit it, and now the rocks have just kind of tumbled. I keep meaning to try to rebuild it but just haven't gotten to it.

But I don't think I could build a free-standing wall, although I've read about doing it.

Dee

I didn't plant the barn foundation rock wall (nor can I claim credit for building it - that's DH's work along with the tractor.) I did intentionally plant the walls at my previous house, but here I have a perennial garden at the top of the wall and I do selective removal of plants that have seeded into the wall. If it's a weed or a tree seedling or something with such bulky roots that it may try to shift the wall, I remove it while young. If it has soft stems and roots and has seeded itself from the perennials above, I am leaving it. It's currently has a few annual poppies, some asters, and a lot of Dicentra eximia. The rock wall at my previous house was largely planted with rock garden plants like Tunica, Campanula Portenschlagiana AKA Dalmatian bellflower, and Aurinia saxatilis.

I'll leave you with a typical NH rock wall, though it isn't mine. It's one I often drive by, and is just loosely piled rock, removed from pasture or cropland just to get it out of the way. There are more tidily stacked walls near buildings, but the ones along fields (or in woodland that was field 150 years ago) tend to look like this, more a function of removal than deliberate creation.

This post was edited by nhbabs on Sat, Jul 13, 13 at 23:09

southcountryguy, I suspected dianthus. Very pretty. How hard is it to grow from seed?

thyme2dig (great name!), what an amazing space. Love the front of your house; great "bones" with a lot of colors, heights and textures.

And those blue trellises add a great touch. The stonework surrounding the beds is wonderful. The whole area is tied together wonderfully.

a2zmom, I had zero problems with it. Germinated fast and grew well. I will be doing more next year.

nhbabs, Coincidentally, the rocks in my annual planter and the ones edging my sunflower bed also came from farmers fields. They are happy someone will come and truck them away and for me they are easy to get in piles some like your photo. BTW that is a great photo.

Look at all the great stonework!

Karin, that is some before and after photo! You had quite a drop in level to take care of there. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sunken vegetable garden. The wall makes the vegetable garden look so fancy.

Babs, that is a really nice wall too. I love the way you’ve planted into it.

BBPeony, great garden photo. Your garden above the wall is luccious and the wall is nicely done.

SCGuy, that first bed is very nice, bursting with color! Annuals always go well with perennials. Great perennial bed. I love the way it slopes so you end up with great drainage.

Dee, I don’t know, no stone walls? Maybe after you get your new chickens settled in, you can start on that. ;-)

Thyme, I’ve always admired the way you’ve used rock in your garden. One thing about living on a flat level lot, you miss the elevations. You’ve used yours to great advantage. LOVE it!

I haven't really created walls because my lot is really level. Not even a small slope to embroider on. Instead I raised a long border a small amount and edged it in rock. I looked for a before photo and couldn't find one. I guess that was before I had a digital camera and it must be on film and in the attic somewhere.

This angle shows the width of it a little better. I originally had a bed that was half the size until I learned the hard way it was too narrow and I moved a vegetable bed that was in the way and brought it out another 2 or 3 feet.

I love 'Basket of Gold' and tried it along my street and the salt and snow just didn't agree with it but moved it here in the back and it seems to be the perfect place for it.

I don't have any rock walls, but I have lots of stream cobbles. there are piles of rocks all along the south side of the property under the trees. I am planning a wall around the east side of the vegetable terrace to help build up that side and make the garden more level. I plan to just stack up whatever I can find however they seem to be able to rest. We'll see what happens. Mostly these are limestone. There are some left by the previous owners that are actually flat in places!

Oh boy, this is a great thread! No photos here but a great deal of admiration. I'll tell you, looking at all these photos does NOT make me want to go out and take a photo of that thing we we created at the end of the yard. We've been calling it "a wall" --- but compared to what I've seen here---- ahhhh, no!

Karin, I recall drooling over your stonework and gardens on the landscaping forum. I especially love your stonework because it replicates the mountains in the distance and must give you a "mental" connection to them. I wonder….How did you create those paths along these walls? What did you use for a base?

T2D, your gardens and stonework has also caused a huge amount of "stone envy" in my gardening heart. I think the exposed large boulders are magnificent --- silent remains from the glaciers. They are massive enough to visually support that hillside garden. You've (oops, your DH!) certainly succeeded in making those stones look as if they've always been there. Of course, those of us living in New England know that you don't have dig too far in the ground to find a rock or two. One question.... could you explain how you laid the stones in your cottage/vegetable path? I REALLY love your and Karin's walkways! As an aside, I also love the how the blue towers in your last photo picks up the blue of the Salvia? (or Veronica?) on the right. Perfect foil for your peonies.

SCGuy, I agree that planting some creepers would enhance your stonework. Maybe next year you'll post some pictures of them spilling down the hill of your perennial bed? No need to apologize for your annual garden at all. It's beautiful. I've always included them in my gardens ----annuals provide a strong punch of steady color as the perennials in my gardens come and go.

PM2, I really admire your graceful sweep of rocks along the raised border, especially because with the slight slope and the sun orientation, the plants seem to be leaning downward, accentuating the slope. Those are mighty sized rocks--- don't tell me there were in your yard! We live along the shoreline and have actually had to go to a store to buy rocks.

Nhbabs, your "rustic" wall reminds me of the tiny one I constructed from found stones near my first house. However, your steps are wonderful and much more than I could ever have done, even in my younger days. We also love the stone walls of New England and are always amazed how those who lived here hundreds of years ago moved such massive rock in order to mark boundaries and/or to keep in livestock. Your photo brings to mind Robert Frost's "Mending Wall" --- and also our "wandering days"/ car rides. One of our favorite routes involves driving up Rt. 15 North where there are such amazing stone walls spread through the forests along both sides of the parkway.

Pam, I laughed out loud reading your post ---- thinking about all the parts of my body that no longer work as they once did. How true, how true!

Blue Bird Peony, those longer rocks/slabs are wonderful and just the kind I always hope to find when exploring for rocks in my yard. They're hard to come by. Where did you get them?

Molie, no, I didn't have rocks like that on the property. In the beginning, I found someone offering rocks on Freecycle and when I ran out, I made multiple trips to the Masonry supply yard near us and hand picked what I wanted until I had enough. It was a long drawn out affair...lol.

a2zmom wrote: . I use then to outine the bed, but nothing fancy, that's for sure!

That's me too! I love the look of natural stone for edging. Here is the edging for some of our gardens.

From a distance:

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Now a close-up of the right side where the "right garden wing" meets the middle section:

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And here where the "left garden wing" meets the middle section:

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And finally our new shade bed. I did the edging late last fall with all plantings new this season.

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Absolutely gorgeous pictures 'prairie' and 'thyme'.

Thanks 'karin' for staring this thread.

This is an early June 2008 photo of our driveway retaining wall made from native NH stone.

I have run out of complimentary adjectives to describe what I am seeing. That wall is incredibly beautiful. Please give us more details and more pictures.

Alright, I've decided I don't like this thread anymore!

;)
Dee

,,, but of course I can't stay away! Wow, such beautiful stonework, and in so many styles and different kinds of stone. Really amazing.

Rouge, your edging is wonderful! What kind of stone is tha? It gives a formal look to the garden, but the plantings soften it and make it look less formal, but still so neat and organized and planned. And the plant edgings - what is that begonia and... lobelia? I'm half blind at the computer with my contacts in... getting old, lol.

Beautiful walll, franeli!

Dee

Thank you Dee.

I hand chose them all from the stone yard over the past several years. Every time I would expropriate lawn with garden I would head to that store and bring back always too few stones in the trunk. It was just called "dry wall".

But there is nothing wrong with your eyes ie lobelia alternating with begonia. They both do well in lots of sun and lots of shade....great annuals they are.

It is still very much a work in progress, but I am paving a small patio in the middle of one of my gardens with rock from digging out another garden.

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Another view that gives an idea of how it fits together. The patio chairs are on concrete precast squares because I hate wobbly furniture. Eventually, the patio will grow to touch the rose bed.

I'm with Dee --- I can't stop looking at these beautiful photos. Everyone's work is amazing. So different, yet each one seems to accentuate and enrich the gardens around it.

Mad_gallica, you're actually DIGGING those monsters up from your property! Gadzooks! I love the start of your stone patio. Please keep posting the progress.

Rouge21, I showed my DH your stonework. We both admired the meticulous matching and gradations of the stones you used. Could we copy this, we wondered? Hmmmm...

Franeli, a curved retaining wall from native stones! Hopefully you're not covering up that beautiful wall with plants. It's wonderful and must be such an asset to your home.

Oh wow, this thread is turning into just the fascinating stonework melange that I was hoping for, yay!

We're having an internet outage at home so I'm ogling everyone's photos from a coffee shop. Once we're back online I will answer questions and dole out the compliments for all the impressive work shown here. What fun, keep it up!

Rouge21, your beds are so neat and well maintained! That edging really makes the beds stand out and the colors pop. I always enjoy symmetry too. Your lobelia is growing so well. I rarely have that kind of success with it.

Franeli, what a pretty wall! I would think a curved wall like that is much more difficult to make. Whoever did it, did a great job! Love how the driveway mirrors the curve.

Mad_gallica, wow, what a project you’ve taken on. It sounds like a great idea. I love reuse projects. I imagine this heat is slowing things down. Hope you will post again as the patio progresses.

Hello, Obviously I love working on stone walls. Here are a few examples. The first are before and after pics of a multi-plane garden wall. The others are examples of the way I like to use short stone walls to edge garden beds. I hope you enjoy!

Click here to view these pictures larger

Internet is restored! Now I can do what I love: put my feet up with AM coffee and admire all the impressive work and lovely gardens. I am admiring the huge vocabulary of different types of stonework. Like Dee said, it's intriguing how each one is effective in how it marries rocks, plants, and overall landscape.

Rouge, to answer an earlier question, I think your edging blocks are limestone. Either way, they are big enough to visually 'hold back' the bed against the lawn and I like how the curves intersect and overlap. Much more interesting than a simple perimeter outline.

PrairieMoon has a similar approach but with lovely rounded fieldstones. But again, they are big enough and so carefully placed that they provide just the right touch for the plants to lean up against.

MadGalica, you seem to share my fondness for ridiculously hard work! Your garden has a great feel to it, with a touch of wildness/woodland. Do you feel like a miner when you are digging for prized flagstones?

Franeli, oh wow. The idea of making a tidy square wall from non-tidy, rounded rocks is amazing to me. That is true skill. Did you do that? Or if not, where did you find a mason with that kind of talent? Plus, that is a large wall and serves a major structural role. Love it! Being along the driveway, I imagine the wall and the handsome garden set the stage beautifully for your house and landscape.

Thyme2Dig - oooh la la! Oh my how those boulders anchor your beautiful home. In fact, without the boulders it just wouldn't have the same dynamic. That was a smart move to save them and use them so wisely. Indeed, that must also have been a huge effort! You did a great job of making them look natural like they were casually sitting there since the glaciers departed. Love those stone steps too. That is another thing that is not easy to pull off - there's a lot more fussing and fiddling than meets the eye. I also am envying your flagstone walkway around the veggie beds, and the orphan aster is a sign of a real gardener, who must leave a perfect specimen in its place, even if it's inconvenient. Oh and those tuteurs, don't even get me started on how cool those are!

As for me, I am happy because I went to the rock yard yesterday and picked out another 3100 lb of sandstone to build with. I have to wait a few days (impatiently) for delivery but soon I will be getting my rock fix again.

We do not have any stone work in our yard...yet. We have taken a few trips to the local stoneyard and have thought of a million and one different potential designs. These pictures provide lots of ideas and inspiration. Thanks all for sharing them.

For anyone with grass growing up to the base of your stonework, do you have to week whack the grass every so often?

I weed wack everytime I mow.

That would sound very strange out of context. Actually, that sounds very strange even in context. lol

That's funny Steve! (in the out of context sense of it)

I also weed whack after each mowing. I've noticed that makes the wall look taller, which I like. :)

Wonderful examples of using stone work in your gardens. I have a serious case of stone envy. No stone work here, unfortunately. I'm lucky to have found a few largish,just large enough that I can't lift them, rocks to accent one of my beds and flat ones I can barely lift to serve as stepping stones. There is one large rock under the fir tree that I am trying to figure out how to move without suffering from Pam's litany of aches and injuries.

You folks are weird...I only weed whack when I need too, usually each time I mow....but it doesn't make us any less special

No weed whacking here. Don't own one. We try to use design to avoid having to. My long rock border is right next to my vegetable garden that has landscape fabric with mulch covering it, so there is no grass in front of most of it. I do have one small, maybe 6 ft area with grass in front of it, but we moved it back a foot and again, laid down landscape fabric, right up under the rocks and add mulch there too. And that small area of grass is on the list to be replaced with more stepping stones at some point.

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All of these photos are so gorgeous. I am still enjoying the pics of all the stone walls. Makes me think I need to be sure to include one into a design when I start working on the next area of my yard. Franeli, I'd love to see a current pic of that border and wall. Perfection!

Everyone has done incredible work with their rock.
I can't take credit for the work in my yard. The rocks were too huge to move without a large backhoe, and I have problems just backing up in my driveway, so renting equipment is not for us! We hired someone who had experience with huge rock. I gave him my design ideas for where the rocks should be laid, the rock staircase, rock with brick steps, etc.....and he did a great job making it all look natural.

Molie, the purple in the cottage garden is salvia. The stones in there were just laid on a product called leveling sand. We got it at Ace Hardware. We didn't do a lot of prep work other than digging down a little to get some sand under the stones before they were laid. Fortunately the sand happened to be a granite gray color so it worked.

We used to have grass all the way up to the stone wall in front of the house but that had to be weed whacked regularly. We cut out about 2' of grass and mulched. Originally planted Stella d'oro daylilies in there, but it blocked too much of the rock. I found there was no point on having the rock if we were hiding it with plants. Now it's just mulch.

Thanks, Karin for starting this thread, which I'm going to save in case my "ship comes in" someday and we can afford to hire a craftsman/stone artist to do this kind of work in our yard.

Thyme, thanks for the info on your salvia and how your stones were laid. Those pieces of slate (?) are beautiful. My DH laughs at me because my favorite place to shop is at a local stone supply company & I often tell him, "Don't buy me jewelry --- the only stones I want are for the yard!"

Steve, I love your stonework and the way you've edged your garden beds, which contain striking plant combinations. It must have taken tons of rock and as much patience to create such a serene yard.

We have a huge and noisy weed whacker that I do not like to use at all. DH doesn't weed whack often enough... (OKWhile our lawn is definitely shrinking, there are a few areas that just need to be whacked or cut by hand (mailbox, electrical boxes, tight corners). My future garden lay out plans all contain ways to cut down on mowing odd areas and eliminating the need for weed whacking. Hello mailbox planting bed!

I was wondering if we could use landscape fabric in front of a wall to create a mow strip as prairiemoon mentions. I see BlueBirdPeony's wall has a considerable mow strip mulched in front of it.

Thanks all for the pictures and discussion.

Great stonework, Steve! I love that nice, flat stone, and the way you've edged your beds with it. Nice gardens as well!

Dee

Stone in the garden is so wonderful. I love so many of these -- they are inspiring! Here is my little stone path that I made (please ignore the trash can, lol).

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franeli, your retaining wall is absolutely srumptious. Sets everything off beautifully.

Rouge, your bed edging is just great. I just use a variety of small rocks that I'm constantly digging up. Your looks a LOT nicer.

Steve, both your walss and edging are fantastic. And I love your plant combos also. I can't imagine what it took to build that beautiful curving wall.

Jayco, how did you make your path? Did you did dig a trench and lay down the stones? It came out really well.

Thanks! Yes, I dug a trench, filled it with gravel, then gathered stones from the woods and around (yes I live in stone country and yes this was the hardest part of the project -- next time delivery lol), and then I positioned the stones and filled in around them with fine gravel -- the creative part. Matching the shapes and trying to make it look good was fun.

If I had to do it again I would make the path higher (it sinks each year, and one year I actually dug it up and raised it), and WIDER. It should be a foot wider. Oh well :)

It is really not hard, especially if you don't need it to look perfect. I was intimidated to start but it is absolutely doable by a complete amateur (me!) as long as you can deal with heavy stones.

Jayco, that is a beautiful walkway! I totally agree that stone projects are great for DIY because it really is about the simplest work one could ever do. I don't mean that to sound like it is easy because it is a ton of labor. But it's not complicated and if you don't like it you just unstack them and rearrange until you are happy.

Steve, oh wow. I missed your post while I was writing mine. Your work is gorgeous! You are definitely an A-type wall builder, because that is some incredible attention to detail in every way. I love how the different levels of the wall and the borders merge together, that is brilliant! And as A2Z said, your planting combinations are lavishly beautiful. I also like the way you've edged everything with a flat stack of rocks. It looks much more substantial than just a single layer and it visually contains the beds in a graceful and pleasing way. Are your rocks sandstone? I imagine you buy them? They look ideal for stacking.

What an impressive garden you have. Thanks for sharing and please show us more!

I'll have some new pics of my current wall project soon. I got my latest batch of rock delivered yesterday and I will dive in tonight. Yay!

Duh. Jayco's photo reminded me that I did indeed try my hand at some stonework. This is my very first garden, made about 15 years ago, and while I was happy with the visual results, I didn't do any homework regarding building pathways, and therefore no kind of prep work, and so this pathway is now uneven and sunken in spots. And the garden itself is incredibly overgrown and neglected, being in a little side yard that no one EVER goes in. Around the birdbath you can see some little shrubs - those are dwarf azaleas which were planted way too close, (but whichh are still gorgeous in spring) underplanted with some rockcress which has almostly completely overtaken the pathway, which is probably l why I forgot about it, lol. Where the rockcress hasn't spread, the weeds (as well as spreaders/reseeders such as foxgloves and toad lilies) have. This garden was actually on my list to be redone this year, including toying with the idea of digging up and moving/redoing the pathway, but time constraints and weather have put this project on hold yet again.

In looking at this photo, I kind of like the new, clean look to the garden here (at least compared to what it is now, lol) but it could just be nostalgia kicking in, lol.

Hope the photo shows okay. I actually taped three of them together instead of uploading separately.

Dee

Nice photo Dee. Looks like a lot of work! Quite creative editing too, putting those three pics together. Don't you hate when an area you worked hard on gets out of control and overgrown? I've had a small area that has happened to and still don't know when I'll get to it. One of these days!

Thanks PM2. It was a lot of work, but as Jayco said, it was kind of fun fitting the stones together, kind of like a jigsaw puzzle!

I am toying with the idea of taking a photo of this garden "now" but don't know if I want to embarass myself, lol. The little white fence is completely gone, (rotted away) as are the trellises, although the honeysuckle which I, as a new gardener, stupidly planted to climb them, is still going strong despite my attempts to get rid of it. The cedar edging is also gone, and the red lilies have disappeared. Even the Golden Tiara hostas lining the walkways have gotten thin. Only the dwarf azaleas are still going strong from the original garden.

Oh well, I am definitely not abandoning this bed. It was a double challenge for me - one, because it was my first garden, and two, because several people told me I could "never have a garden" in this spot, because it is almost full shade. I took that as a gauntlet being thrown down, accepted the challenge, and made a successful garden as a newbie, so I do have a sentimental attachment to this overgrown mess, lol.

Dee

Thank you for the compliments. Much appreciated.

I usually work with what they call at the masonry supply place, plain old 'Stacking Stone'. I think the larger wall took about 3.5 pallets. Time consuming to build, but very therapeutic too.

I would so love to be able to buy stones and build walls and walkways, but unfortunately it's just not in the budget at the moment (or for many more moments, lol!) I have to work with what I find in the yard, like the pathway above.

To be honest, though, I think I would be very hesitant to build my own wall. I've read up on it, but being the coward that I am, am afraid to actually start it. There recently was a workshop nearby on building your own stone wall, but I didn't attend. I figured I didn't have enough stone (yet) on the property to build one (they always seem to appear but I don't have enough stockpiled yet) and I can't afford t buy any, so why attend the workshop when I know I would be too chicken too do anything even if I had the stone anyway?

:)
Dee