Garden Designers Roundtable: Natural Stone Works and Wonders

Introduction

The human relationship with stone reaches back through nearly our entire 300,000 year history, beginning with the first stone tools napped by cunning, wary hunters to fell and butcher their prey in the scattered wildernesses of the world. Within the cool darkness of water carved caverns we sought the spirits around us and we painted stone walls with imaginings of their mystical worlds. The great civilizations of antiquity looked to stone for its permanence, seeking to use its apparent indestructibility to create an immortality of their own. Today we carve our monuments of marble, granite and other natural wonders just as these ancient peoples did thousands of years ago. Stone tugs at our memories and recalls these ancient worlds, evokes the eternal and intimate connection we feel to the world around us and, especially, the earth beneath us. Its character is timeless, its colors and textures evocative and its pull on our imagination powerful. No wonder we are drawn to stone and all its dazzling variations, colors, textures and characters.

What is stone’s place in today’s landscape? How do we use it to improve our lives and land? In the most basic sense, EnergyScapes, Inc. uses natural stone to honor the energy, in all its forms, of the world around us. We use the colors, characters and durability of stone to create sanctuaries for life and living. Stone allows us to define spaces were we feel grounded to something ancient in a place were we can be within the nature that gave us life. We use stone to direct and manage water in ways that recognize its value as a resource rather than problem to be quickly disposed of. And we use stone to enhance and facilitate our installation practices and reduce the pollution footprint of our projects. Our best projects showcase these and other amazing properties of natural stone and our unique approach to its installation and place in the landscape.

EnergyScapes always seeks to respect and preserve the earth and the beauty of every site we plan, transform and nurture. We typically minimize heavy equipment or machinery crossing soil at our installations. We craft our stone projects by hand, stone by stone, reducing noise pollution, operating costs, compaction and damage to the site. Without diesel hydraulics, we are forced to slow down, listen to the stone and pay more attention to the natural artistry the stone reveals. Here we draw your attention to five projects we thought might inspire your senses to consider how natural stone could enhance your own landscape. See our stonework section of our website portfolio for more.

Dark Lake, WI: Bringing Nature to the Doorstep

Our client on this project brought EnergyScapes in to help develop this rare property, while preserving the pristine lake-shore oak savanna/woodland ecosystem surrounding the cabin site. The property is located on a point between a small lake that is home to a species of freshwater coral, a larger lake and a rich fen wetland, with tamarack and other plants unique to those acid, waterlogged soils. Our stonework and installation sought to retain and enhance the natural surroundings as close to the structure as possible. We wanted to bring the woods right to the backdoor while creating outdoor living spaces that honored the rustic character of the building as well as the remote, secluded mystery of the surrounding forest.

 

To preserve the native plant-life and limit the impact of our installation, we imposed strict limitations on ourselves. In the image to the right, the black line of silt fencing was the limit of our construction impact. We did not allow ourselves to store stone, tools or construction debris beyond this boundary. We worked with building contractors to reinforce why it was important for them to also respect existing plants and the ancient soil matrix, which had never been compacted.

The natural stones used on the project were a wonderfully textured stone quarried from Montana and locally quarried Chilton Dolomite. The Montana stone offered a wide range of sizes, shapes while its dark blues, greys and blacks evoked images of ancient stones from Ireland or Norway.

Landscape stonework is often devoted to creating outdoor “rooms” and defining paths between spaces. By combining two types of stone we created pathways and illusions of streams though the large patio behind the cabin. The retaining walls beneath the patio kept the construction impact to a smaller footprint and gives illusion of the patio floating into the woodland beyond. The walls mirror intricate patterns within a natural stone outcrop, as we use different sizes to interlock each stone to its neighbor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The final product is an outdoor living space that allows guests to feel connected to nature, on this special site, without leaving safety of solid stone patio and its comforting arms. The soil remains a sanctuary for plants permitting guests to commune with wildlife they support.

 

Mahtomedi, MN: Stone Ruin and Natural Stream

On this project, we sought to solve several problems with poor grading around the building, access and maintenance headaches. The image to the left shows the troublesome grading along the side of the home. Water runs directly into the building and the rock maintenance strip is continually choked with undesirable weeds. Further, a decaying timber retaining wall and planter dominated the back yard and were a difficult feature to live with.

Our solution offered easy access to the back yard from the driveway and created a unique and wonderful sanctuary of water and stone.

This image shows how we used natural wallstone to solve the grading problems along this side of the home. The change in grade leveled the turf area, as well as created a wide pathway and area for plantings making this a living and usable space.

The pathway runs from the driveway by the garage around the property providing easy access and vertical character by drawing attention to the dramatic grades of the property. We used Chilton Dolomite for the wall and path. Chilton is extremely durable and offers rich colors of blue, pink, red and gold.

The most dramatic transformation was in the back yard where we created a ruined stone wall, dramatically cut through by a babbling stream.

The stream twists and dives beneath the wallstones, disappearing and rushing out again. It ends in a small pond by a new flagstone patio that looks out to the wooded property beyond. A space that was difficult, inaccessible and difficult to maintain is now completely transformed to a living, singing sanctuary. The pathway from the images above, allows you to walk along the water course, linger as it dives beneath a flagstone bridge and finally find yourself on a sturdy flagstone patio listening to the singing stream beside a clam pool of water.

Warner Nature Center Amphitheater

EnergyScapes created this natural amphitheater to address the Warner Nature Center’s need for a handicapped accessible outdoor entertainment and educational space that embraced their beautiful woodlands. Using St. Croix Valley Limestone to mimic the bluffs and cliffs along the St. Croix River and Chilton Dolomite for its durability and color, this space offers considerable capacity while immersing its guests in a woodland wonderland.

To provide handicapped access, we created a compacted gravel path using decomposed granite held in place by a grid of plastic cylinders. This method avoided much of the excavation that would be needed for a stone, paver or concrete walkway preserving the soil structure of the site and avoiding deadly compaction damage to the trees.

After compaction the pathway is nearly as hard as any stone and provides gently sloping access down to the amphitheater.

On nearly all of our installations, we try to avoid the use of machinery to preserve the health of the ecosystem that was present before we began construction.

As with the project at Dark Lake, WI, use of any major motorized equipment had to be limited to preserve the native root structure and avoid noise pollution. While machinery was used to place the large outcroppings of St. Croix Valley Limestone, the Chilton stage was installed entirely by hand.

We are very proud of this space as it serves the community to educate, entertain and nurture.

Minneapolis, MN: Rain-gardens and Recycled Concrete

On this small property in south Minneapolis, the owner brought EnergyScapes on to solve several major water management challenges and expand her outdoor living space. A narrow concrete walkway ran along the north side of the home between the building and the neighbors concrete retaining wall. The concrete walkway was also the only drainage route for two downspouts and carried all their water runoff directly into the back yard. The client told us that every winter, the gate at the end of the walk way literally froze shut with several inches of ice as melt water stacked up over the season.

To save the client money, avoid transportation costs and pollution, we saved the broken out sections of the walkway. During removal, we discovered that the walkway on the surface had been pored on top of an older walkway a few inches down. Together, these two walkways provided us with all the stockpiled concrete we would need.

These concrete sections were used to construct two retaining walls along a walkway between the garage and the back yard. The walls provided space for the excavated material from two large rain-gardens, a new flagstone pathway and patio to be shaped for water management and control. By using this method, we were able to avoid removing any material from the site and saved the client hundreds of dollars in transport and disposal costs.

To solve the water problem, we created two large rain-gardens that accepted water from nearly 75% of the roof. The challenge came in directing water from the front of the home where it had been spilling down the previous concrete path. Once we removed the concrete path, we created a permeable flagstone pathway and patio to accept water from any point and direct it into one of the rain-gardens.

To begin, we lined the excavation with EPDM rubber liner to prevent water from percolating down and damaging the foundation. We then installed a permeable PVC pipe that connected directly into the two downspouts along the pathway. Clear gravel as a base material allows water to enter the pipe from any point along the system.

The new patio expanded the area of a small existing concrete patio just off the back door. The new patio is nestled along the retaining wall on the north side of the property in the corner of the large berm and rain garden. The client had several whimsical pieces of yard art, such as the heron in the image to the right. We enjoyed incorporating these into the landscape.

Large boulder outcroppings in the berms provide interest, depth and obstacles for the clients several dogs to play around. We are told the dogs especially enjoy racing across the tops of the berms and retaining wall.

The large flagstone steppers also are bridges spanning dry stream beds that carry the water into the rain garden below. The bridges maintain access across the back yard.

This project demonstrates the potential for reusing nearly all the existing materials on a site. In all of our installations our first question in the planning stages is often, “Where can we put the dirt?” We are always seeking to efficiently reuse as much material as possible to avoid pollution and reduce costs.

Edina, MN: A Backyard Sanctuary in Progress

In this work in progress, we demonstrate a great deal of the beauty, variety and color of natural stone. The clients here wanted to improve their back yard, add outdoor living space and create a sanctuary for themselves and their family.

The only true outdoor living space in the back yard was an exposed aggregate patio. Rather than remove the patio, which was in excellent condition, we proposed to simply expand off of it.

The new patio expansion uses New York Blue-stone to compliment the color of the existing concrete. To provide a level surface the patio “floats” on a small retaining wall. The change in elevation is marked by a raised natural stone planting bed. The new patio expands the usable space of the previous concrete patio by nearly 50%.

In addition we proposed a second patio set about half way across the length of the back yard to provide a more secluded and separate space. Eventually, this detached patio will be accompanied by a waterfall and pond. The detatched patio is built into a large slope along the west side of the property. The soil is retained by a Chilton stone wall capped with large flagstones to provide a natural seating area. The seating wall has different heights for different bodies to accommodate several ages in the family.

 

We are particularly proud of this installation. Please stay tuned as we post updates on our progress and images of what will be a stunning pond and waterfall.

Conclusion

We hope that we have inspired you to go out to your yard or garden and imagine how stone and its amazing colors, varieties and characters can help you to create outdoor spaces for life and living. We have many more images and descriptions of our projects in the gallery section of our website. We hope to continue inspiring people to look at their landscape in new ways, with new materials and new techniques. Thank you so much for visiting!

Please check out these other Garden Designer’s Round Table contributors to this months Stone topic:

Deborah Silver : Dirt Simple : Detroit, MI

Sunny Wieler : Stone Art Blog : West Cork, Ireland

Debbie Roberts : A Garden of Possibilities : Stamford, CT

Ivette Soler : The Germinatrix : Los Angeles, CA

Jenny Peterson : J Peterson Garden Design : Austin TX

Rochelle Greayer : Studio G : Boston, MA

Scott Hokunson : Blue Heron Landscapes : Granby, CT

Susan Cohan : Miss Rumphius’ Rules : Chatham, NJ

Tara Dillard : Vanishing Threshold : Atlanta, GA