I'm going to use a different kind of stone on this project than I have in my other projects because I want a level surface for chairs. All of my past stone projects have used roundish, glacial erratic rocks. I've made a bunch of paths using the flat sides of these rocks, but I didn't think it would work well for a large patio. I found a picture in a book that mixed flagstone with accents of rounder rocks and I thought that would make a good transition from one type of rock to the other, so that's what I'm going to do. The flagstone I'll use is called Onaway stone, a type of limestone quarried near here. The local supplier is having trouble getting stone in this year because of a change of ownership of the quarry or something. Hopefully he gets some before the weather gets too hot and the mosquitos get thick!

I've read a few things about installing patios, but have never done one myself. It's recommended that you start with a layer of gravel, topped with sand and then the stones. On my paths, I have never used gravel and they haven't shifted from the frost. Theres nothing but sand under the layer of forest duff, so do I need gravel? I'm thinking of going without it.

The fire pit is going to be upgraded with fire bricks on the inside and the round stoned mortared on the outside, capped with flagstone. I'm tired of cracked rocks. I think I'll make it about a foot above ground and about 6 inches below ground. I want it a little deeper than it is now, but I'm going to be careful that I don't make it so deep that the fire isn't visible from a seated position around it.

The whole area is on a slope. I ran a string across it with a level and it looks like it drops almost two feet. I'll need to dig into the slope and build a dry stacked retaining wall. I don't want to have a wall right next to the patio, so I'm putting it back a two or three feet. That will leave room for some plants and a little extra room if someone needs to step off the patio. I'll make the wall out of the roundish rocks. I've already started hauling them in. I might cap the wall with Onaway stone if it looks right.

This is the area with the wood pile moved, the firepit repositioned, and the general layout outlined with hoses. My neighbor and I, recently removed 13 dead jack pines from the woods here, so there's a big brush pile and some stumps I removed. In the foreground, you can see some of the rocks I've started to haul in.

Any comments are welcome. I'll post more pictures as things progress. I'm not in a huge hurry to get this done. I just work on it as I feel like it, so don't expect finished pictures anytime soon!

I've managed to remove the unwanted soil from about half of the area where the patio will be. When I'm done with this circle, I'll still have to dig back to where the retaining wall will be. I've decided to put some of the topsoil at the lowest part of the wall to that the retaining wall won't have to be quite as high. I'm also trying not to make the retaining wall go three quarters of the way around the patio. I'd like it to go about half way, but I have to figure out how to move all this dirt to make that happen. It's a lot of work moving all this with a shovel and wheelbarrow!

In the foreground, you can see where I've stacked up some of the topsoil in the lowest spot. The white stuff is some big pollen things from the popple trees.

I still have to dig back several feet for a narrow garden and for the rocks. I just wanted to get an idea of what the size of the patio will be and how tall the wall will be as it goes around the patio. I need to decide if it will taper down gradually, or be level and step down as it goes from the highest part to the lowest. I think I'm going to step it down.

There are two paths from my yard, heading to the fire pit. One is on the lowest side, so you'll just walk right onto the patio from the path because there will be no wall in that area. The other path enters about a quarter of the way around the patio and is at one of the highest points. I hadn't considered that I'd need to build steps, but it appears that I will have to. I've built steps before, so I don't think it will be a problem.

I've also been thinking about what to do about my wood pile. It's sort of an eyesore, but I need to have wood near the fire. I'm thinking about building a small storage area into the wall and moving the main pile a short distance away near my compost bins which are made out of logs so it will blend right in. The storage area would be a place where the wall makes a 90 degree turn away from the patio and runs about five feet before returning to the main circle of the wall. It would give me a woodbox about five feet long by the length of a log and only about a foot and a half high. The wood pile could be stacked a little higher if I wanted, but that would give me room to store enough wood for a fire or two. I don't know if that made any sense, so here's a sketch:

Last time I posted, I forgot to thank anitamo for her nice compliments. Thanks anitamo!

Since the last update, I dug out about half of the wall/garden part around the patio. I found a source for gravel to put behind the wall, but I haven't ordered it yet because I'm afraid it will be in the way. I'm about ready to start building the wall, but I want to get some more rocks first. I have quite a few, but they're all kind of colorless. They were all from the same ditch and are pretty dirty. I tried to clean some off, but they just seem to be grayish rocks. My other walls have a fair amount of color, so I think I should get some other rocks so i can mix colors. That means going out and finding some rocks near the road and then getting permission to take them.

Hopefully I'll post more pictures soon.

Thanks for the compliments, calamity!

I also screeded the area to make it level. Most books or webpages I've read show screeding of a path or square patio by setting up boards along the edge and using those as a guide. That didn't really work in my situation, so I set a concrete block in the center of my patio and did a radial screeding with that as a guide. It worked well.

Yesterday, I had some gravel delivered. Everything I've read tells me to use gravel behind the wall, but no one says what type of gravel. So I emailed a couple of people who have great websites to ask what the proper type of gravel is. They were both very helpful and even agreed with each other which makes me feel more confident. You should check out their websites. Don Engebretson's site is The Renegade Gardener ( http://www.renegadegardener.com ). I particularly like Don's "Don't Do That" section. John Shaw-Rimmington's site is The Dry Stone Wall Association of Canada. It has some really beautiful stone walls. He has teaches classes in stone wall construction too. I really wish I lived closer because I'd love to take a class. They both told me to get 3/4 inch clear or washed gravel. I got mine from a place that sells concrete. It's what they use as aggregate in their concrete mix. It is not road gravel. At the concrete place they referred to it as 6AA.

I started stacking rocks today too. The part in the picture below took a couple of hours and then I got stuck. I just couldn't get anything to fit the way I wanted it to, so I tore it all down except two rocks. This rock stacking stuff is tough. I hate the round corners on the rocks because they leave a gap. Unfortunately, the rocks I have pretty much all have round corners!

Here's what it looked like after rebuilding. I'm pretty happy with this. I'm at the point where I need some more rocks though because it's easier when you have more to choose from. When I started, I had about 50 rocks collected, including some pretty small ones. I have to go get permission from another farmer, because I got all the decent rocks I could from the last ditch. I like to start my walls from the center so that I have both ends to work on. That gives me twice as many places to fit rocks. In this case, it's also the highest part of the wall which is the hardest. I think the first layer is the easiest because you can dig them into the sand at the bottom anyway you want. After a layer is in, you can't really change it except by tearing down the rocks below and starting over.

ANgie

Rob

Angie

I don't own a pickup or a trailer, so I haul them in my Jeep. The rocks that are too big to pick up get rolled up a 2x12 into the Jeep.

When I get home, I roll to rocks from the Jeep to my wagon.

Here's the current state of the wall.

I'm almost done with the woodbox.

I've also possibly finished the left end of the wall. I decided early on to keep the wall level and step it down as the ground slopes, rather than to have a wall with a sloped top. I made one step down and then tapered it off at the end. I wanted to end it more abruptly with one, big rock, but I didn't have any rocks that were big enough to end that way. The ground at the end of the wall is still too high, but I was planning to level it off. Now I'm considering extending the wall a few more feet at the lower level that it currently ends at. I'm going to wait until I'm done with the rest of the wall and then make a decision. Do you have an opinion?

Thanks for sharing.

Xuan

Here's a shot from another angle. The fire pit here is not what the finished pit will look like. I put the original rocks back temporarily to measure how big it was. The new fire pit will be made with fire brick on the inside and mortared stones on the outside with a flagstone cap.

I also dug out the fire pit area so that I can pour a footing tomorrow. I was too exhausted to haul the camera back for a picture. It's a big hole.

You made me want to go out into my own garden, move some rocks and start a rock garden!

Thanks for sharing.

Xuan

I've gotten started on the fire pit. Here's a picture of the footing.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make the fire bricks fit around the circle. I'm a math teacher, so figuring out the geometry wasn't a problem, but I had a bad feeling about that last brick fitting perfectly. I considered making spacers for the gaps between the bricks, but it wasn't confident that it would be very accurate. I ended up making this template to work around. It took me three or four tries to get it just right, so I'm really glad I was working with dry bricks instead of mortared bricks.

Here's the template in action (okay, maybe it's not actually "action"). I use it on each new course. I made it out of 1/4 inch luan plywood with spacers underneath so the mortar had room to ooze out. I cut the middle out so I could work from inside. The first rocks are in, but I didn't worry about making them neat because they'll be buried.

At the moment my hubby is not here with me so I cannot get any help!

When I can finally put the "garden" together, I will share photos with you.

Meanwhile, may I show you my succulent bed, which has made used of some rocks. (I posted this in the C&S forum)

Your firepit looks very nice, you're so careful to make a template. But it has certainly saved you a lot of guess work, hasn't it?

In our country, there're bricks that can withstand high temperature. My hubby used them for the fireplace in our second home here. The bricks look similar to those you're using.

All the best to your building. I'm so eager to see it put into use by your family this winter, perhaps?

Thanks for sharing.

Xuan

The bricks I'm using are the high temperature bricks. When I had just rocks before, they were getting all cracked from the heat, so I decided to go with the fire bricks.

How do you lift them on to the top tier of that wall?

Today I got a 10 yard load of topsoil. Most of my body hurt by dinner time, but strangely my back didn't hurt. Unfortunately, most of it is still in my driveway.

I've added a low row of rocks to the end of each end of the wall. I wanted to wait until the steps were done to do the ends of the walls, because the steps are going to be more difficult and I wanted better rocks to choose from. But in order to put all the topsoil in place, it was hard to avoid finishing the wall. So it's done. I think it looks good.

I have all the firebrick done, but I'm only about a third done with the stones. I decided to stop work on the stones to get the dirt in so I could plant some stuff before it was too late.

Since the last update, I also removed the tree stump. I did most of it with a shovel and a hatchet, but cheated a little with the chainsaw at the end. After cutting through sandy roots, it wasn't sharp enough to cut up the stump. It's sharpened now, but getting the topsoil out of my driveway took priority over the stump. I'll cut it up this week.

I also got bad news about the Onaway stone I'm using for the patio and steps. It was supposed to be available this fall, but now they've decided to wait until spring to mine it. I'll be able to finish the fire pit, and plant a few more things, but that's about it until I get flagstone in the spring.

Congrats on your hard work, Juggler.

I'm with you on how hard it is to make a wall out of glacial worn field rock. I have built over a hundred rock walls in thirty plus years as a Landscape contractor. I used blasted quarry rock with flat surfaces and right angles. Much easier than working with basketballs. A rock shaped like a football is the hardest to deal with in building anything, including decorative outcroppings.
I use the largest rocks for the base of the wall and work up with progressively smaller rocks. More pleasing to the eye in my opinion. I realize you didn't have all your rocks to choose from when you began.

Nice work. My compliments Rob. (I have a son named Rob.)
Mike

I really like your gardens. I've looked at your pictures many times trying to learn from them. You've got some really great trees, shrubs, and rocks. I love the spring pictures with the azaleas, Japanese maples, and evergreens.

Rob

You have done a wonderful job!

I live in a different climate and a lot of plants are easy to grow, but unwanted plants are easy too. Blackberry vines can grow twenty feet up in trees here. I've seen them tangled up in phone lines. Our version of Kudzu vine. I have some weeds going to seed right now even though most nights have been just below freezing the past week.

Working with rock is a very satisfying endeavor for me. Plants grow and change. Rocks have a sense of permanence about them. A well done job will last. There's a certain amount of feeling good with that.
The picture below shows some rocks I hauled in and placed a few years ago. It needs some tweaking, but I hope to have it landscaped before spring. Dwarf evergreens seem to be in order here. Zone eight means I can work through the winter several days of the week. Rain is more of a problem than low temps and snow. The stream goes dry by mid summer until late November. South is to the left.
Mike

The fire pit was finished last fall except for the capstones. I'm waiting for flagstone for that. I got an email from the stone place saying that they were reopening the quarry last week. I'm hoping that within a month I can get some stone and get back to work. I can't wait to see it finished either!

I need some advice about what type of benches or chairs I should put around the fire pit. I'm leaning toward some sort of bench with a seat made out of slab of wood about six inches thick with front and back edges unfinished, except for having the bark removed. I'm not sure what to do about legs if I do something like this. One thought is to use the 4x6 legs from my old benches (see the first picture in this thread). Another idea for legs is to use full log sections about 16 inches long, turned perpendicular to the bench top. I also considered adirondack chairs, but I think they'll take up too much space and not provide enough seating. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

If you've got the thick slabs, I think they would make great benches. You can use shorter pieces for legs but you would want them to be rather plain. I'm posting a link to a quick search I did for natural wood benches showing what I'm thinking of. I suspect they would be rather heavy though and not too great to move around easily.

Don't rule out Adirondack chairs. They are sooo comfy with their back and arm rests. Your fire pit is pretty big so you could probably have a couple there along with the benches. I find ours are always the first to get claimed.

I have a teenage daughter and an elementary school son who I think will have friends over for fires, so I'd like to have enough room for a group of kids. It's easier to squeeze three kids on a bench than squeeze five Adirondack chairs together.

I think tanowicki might have the right idea with a mixture of the two.

If I can't rough up the edges with a hammer or chisel I'll try a wire brush. I've seen a torch used to flake away an edge on a TV show, but I think that was on granite, not limestone.

I figured out how to finish the edges of my capstones. It's probably not the way the professionals do it, but it works for me. I bought some muriatic acid and I've been dipping the edges in that.

Here's how I cut them:

This is what it looks like after the cut:

Dip it in acid a bunch of times:

Here's the end result:

Josh