I love it! Thanks for sharing. Ambitious and executed well. Makes me want to build one!

Good job. If you ever find yourself unemployed you found a new line of work since it is becoming a lost art.

Here is a link that might be useful: Propagating Perennials

Thanks a bunch! More to come - I'm full of projects this year!

DV

Wowza. That is wonderful. I love rocks. (I only have two nice ones. I may have to name them.)

With a 25 foot wide property I can only dream of working on that scale so am green with envy. It's all very nicely done; thanks for sharing.

Also seems to me Bryce might have himself a trade, that having been his apprenticeship!

Karin

Kelly:

Thanks! I think you should definitely name your rocks. Rocks are people too, ya know! :)

Karin:

I am indeed blessed to have this place. My sister found it first, and they bought the property next to mine (about 46 acres). Then this part of the property came up for sale and I was eventually able to get 22 of the 39 acres. There's a lot of work to it, but I can't imagine living in the suburbs or an apartment again. I've been ruined, I suppose!

You indeed have a narrow plot, but I wonder if you cold put a tiny wall in like the one beside my front walk. It was really easy - only one rock thick - and then the cap stones make it look like a bigger wall. I had to do something, because the soil was gradually creeping forward from my flower beds and covering the sidewalk. Before I put in that wall I had lost a foot or more of sidewalk in some places. Anyway, even if you only put in one special rock I think it would be awesome. They add so much to the landscape, and you don't have to take care of them! The ultimate pets, no?

DV

Thanks for the thoughts - we have put in about as much rock as the property will carry, some as dry-laid walls, much as boulder borders that I am just planting up. So I can fully appreciate the work that went into your project. Your design is really elegant - I would love to see a photo that shows both walls from the driveway perspective, if I understand their orientation - one on either side of driveway? - correctly. Or perhaps I missed such a photo - I just saw one where you could see the west wall past the east wall.

Even so, very enjoyable to look at.

KarinL

I just have to say how much i enjoyed your slideshow. Your rock work and outdoor spaces are sublime. Your wall reminds me of the walls i'd find in the middle of the woods i'd walk as a child. Those walls seemed to go on forever. It's always been my understanding (true or not, i don't know) that those walls were created by the farmers who used to work the land, stacking the rocks they'd find in dry walls to define their borders.

Please keep the photographs coming.

:)

Karin,

Glad you squeesed some rocks in your little corner of the world! :)

The walls are actaully at right angles to each other. The east wall is perpendicular to the drive and is on your right as you come in. The West wall on the left is actually parallel to the drive and then curves around the big oak tree. The 'T-Rex' rock faces you on that side. The reason I did it that way is so I would have a wall that faced the house and that also faced you when you were leaving, going back down the drive. So I've got a wall looking at you coming and going, so to speak! Both walls are actually shaped roughly like a question mark ? if you looked at them from above. I wanted them to be organic - not stright. Of course, I had no idea that its even HARDER to build a wall with curves like that, but we were dumb and just jumped right in! It worked out.

I'll take a few more pictures and post them so you can see what it looks like now. And from different angles.

Estreya:

Thank you! The walls are indeed fieldstone, and this is exactly what the farmers used to stack up on the borders of their fields as they cleared the land. In the South, many refer to them as 'slave walls', becuase that's who built them. Many people are now trying to restore and preserve these walls - most of which have been heaved over by trees and tree roots.

DV

OK, Kids!

I made some updated photos that will hopefully give a more compreshensive view of the finished walls. Plus a preview of two more projects I have in the works. Yes, I know! It's the obsessive / compulsive disorder thing...

Here is a link that might be useful: Updated: Stone Wall Diary

OK, now I've got my overview, thanks! Fine work indeed, very snazzy design.

Nice touch, the few little rocks scattered around the base of the monolith. Makes it look more natural!

Cherry rounds may make for slippery stepping stones, be careful..

KarinL

Thanks Karin. I agree the smaller rocks add a lo to make it more natural. Since the design is fairly organic, it makes it feel more so to have other rocks placed informally with the others. In nature, you usually don't have just one rock sticking up all by its lonesome!

The log rounds should not be a problem. The surface is fairly rough where the chain saw did its work, so even when varnished this roughness should add a little traction.

Take care,

DV

Hey, any time you want rocks, come visit me. We have so many that we pick them out of our teeth in the morning. Sigh.

We live on the side of a mountain in the northern Poconos, on what was glacial till during the last ice age. It's what we refer to as extreme gardening: we dig a hole with a pickax, nothing less!

I will post pix soon; I'm looking for help in working with rocks also, but the kind of taming that your excellent walls hint at is just not possible where I live!

Have you tried dynamyte?! Just joking!

Please do send some pix. Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing, as they say. It would indeed be a challenge if all you had were rocks! If we were closer I would have definitely taken a few off your hands!

Regards,

DV

Wow. Coming out of lurkdom to say that I love those stone walls. What a beautiful property. I am debating whether to attempt a very simple stone or slate pathway--I am in complete awe of your and Bryce's ability to move and manipulate all that rock! Love the Japanese maples too. Looking forward to future updates!

Thanks dsb! I say go for that pathway!

The pergola for the woodland path is being delivered on Friday, and then we can start in earnest on the Ruined wall. I'll post updates.

As for Japanese Maples, here are a few pics from this spring. Enjoy! {{gwi:27209}}Japanese Maples - Spring '08

K4

So DV, I finally got my rock pix together. Take a look at these.....like I said, anytime you want to stop by and take a truckload, you're very welcome!

Here is a link that might be useful: Our property

Holy ROCKPILE Batman!! You DO have a lot of rock, don't you!!

Wow, that is really a challenge you have there. A beautiful house, though, and the creek area is quite lovely. I would be tempted to call in a big Dozer and have at it!! Scrape some of that stuff off around the house, then have truck loads of soil brought in just to have a semblence of a yard and gardens (without rocks!)

As for deer, I found a nice web site you may be interested in. Aside from inviting every deer hunter in the county to your house for a shoot-out, you can plant some things they're resistant to. Here's the site:

http://njaes.rutgers.edu/deerresistance/

My favoritre deer-proof plants are daffodils. The deer won't touch them, and they naturalize beautifully.

DV

Beautiful, BEAUTIFUL, both DV and Kren!

DV, what perfectly wonderful work on those walls! I absolutely love what you are doing with your place. I very much appreciate the lines, colors, balance -- all the intermingling play. Oh, and my world operates at the pace of the stones, so I have a deep resonance with them. The Stones are my People. =)

Kren, I know those slopes and rocks are hard to work with. (Is one leg shorter than the other from walking on steep slopes all the time?? haha.) Truly it looks like an idyllic place. For a woods fairy, anyway. ;)

Your walls are beautiful, a true work of art.
We are living among rock as well. We have mounds of rock that were excavated to build our home. Ours are more of the rounder variety. We have been using them in our landscape and have not made a dent in the large piles. There are more in the ground as well. I find them every time I dig a hole to plant.
We also have many old stone walls on our property. The one directly in our backyard I wanted to save was destroyed during the build :( I plan to clean out the area and plant around what remains. I am amazed at the effort it had to take to build walls back then as the tools we have today were not available at that time.
Thanks for sharing your wonderful photos. I enjoyed viewing them.

Thanks woodsfairy and dragonfly. I hope you do save the stone walls on your property. So many of them are being lost to develpment or just torn down and used for other things. 100 years from now I would be really sad if someone tore my walls up (since I will be dead by then I would have to come back and haunt them! :0 ) I think they're an art form, really, as well as being something practical.

Just an update - the pergola came in and we're staining it ebony. Needs another coat, but I've included a few shots. The last of the rock is in as well, so Jesse will be working on the wall this week now that school is out.

I found an awesome book on dry-laid stone walls called , "In the Company of Stone", by Dan Snow. Very creative and beautiful stuff. I got a lot of ideas for the Ruined wall from it.

DV

Pics of Pergola, and the pond area is now cleared out - just need to burn the brush pile. Making progress....
{{gwi:27210}}Pergola & Pond

Outstanding. I really enjoyed your pictures. Just really a great project that was well done!!