Beginner Gardening: new concrete blocks question, 1 by Katlian

Katlian wrote:
Hi Cathy and all!
I saw this thread and thought I would jump in and share a photo. We have cement block beds that we are covering with split pieces of quartzite rock. The rocks had been dry stack walls at our old house and the buyers didn't want them, so we hauled everything to our new house (only a mile, not that bad). The new beds were too big to make out of solid rock so we built with blocks and now we are gluing the rock to the face.

You can see the blocks are mortared (mortar is a big pain the you-know-what!), though it is starting to crack a little. The blocks on the bottom are set in a trench to level them. The rocks are partially finished on the wall on the left. We saved the biggest blocks to cover the holes on top, but left gaps because frogs like to hide inside the holes.

It took 8 yards of dirt to fill the beds and it has settled enough to add more now. It's hard to see in the photos, but watering the veggies caused most of the lime and natural salts in the soil to leach out into the walkways. We plan to lay sandstone slabs in the walkways when the other rocks are all finished.

It's definitely a lot more work than painting the blocks. Living with a perfectionist, I've learned to just let him do things his way, but only when he does the work himself.

If you decide on a more whimsical way to decorate you blocks, please post a photo.

Janel