gardenfun's Blog

Purchasing Stone for Gardens
Feb 13, 2008 | 12:17 PM PST
Tags: purchasing stone , stone wall gardeneing , cheap stone walls

Hey,

When you get the urge to build stone walls for your gardens DO NOT GO TO THE LOCAL NURSERY OR GARDEN CENTER!  Go instead to the local quarry.

A pallet of garden stone at the garden center starts at about $250 and goes up from there depending on what sort of stone you purchase.  One pallet of stone is about all a pick up truck can haul home.  Don't poop in your pants at what I'm about to tell you, but at the quarry you can buy a pick up truck load of granite that they have there for rip-rap and erosion control for $25 a truck load. 

The trick is that you have to climb on the pile of rock at the quarry and pull out the stones that you think you can use.  You are looking for flat or square looking stones.  Remember if there are strange cuts in the stone so that its not perfectly flat or square all around that you can hide the imperfections by placing that part of the stone inward and it will be cover by garden soil. You will want to use the soil also to make it level for the placing of the next stone.  The guys working where I buy my stones think I'm quite eccentric and entertaining so they are actually very kind and helpful to me.  When I have plucked the useful stones that are easily accessible from the pile they will usually come by with their dozers and mix the pile up a bit for me (without my even asking) so a whole new crop of good stones pop up for me to pick from.  It takes about 45 minutes to load the truck up.  You also don't want the quarry folks just fill your truck with the dozers.  You need to be selective in order for this to work.  Although it seems tempting to let load you up with the dozer you will be disappointed when you get home and discover that about half of the stones can not be used to build a wall.  Surprisingly the work of selecting the stones at the quarry is not all that difficult.

I don't do much altering of the stones once I get them home.  I look at it as if it were a giant three dimensional jigg saw puzzle and fit the stones together as they seem to be suggesting themselves.  Also pick up big stones, medium stones, small, and even little stones.  The little stones plug gaps and level out some of the vexing larger stones.  The different sizes also add visual interest to the construction. Don't pick giant stones!!!!  They are difficult to place in the wall and they are back brakers just to handle.