Coming from you Dax, I am honored by the compliments. The stone work is quite an undertaking. I'll wager that there are several more experienced and knowledgable people on DG that can give advice. This is the first and only rock work I ever undertook. I did it myself because hubby has a bad knee and a bad back, although he helped where he could. First and foremost choose your stone wisely. I did not. I wanted the same stone as around the pond. It is a light grey green schist. Color - gorgeous. Workability - on a scale of 1 to 10 a -2. The stone, even the large flagstone pieces, were not flat on both sides. So you leveled very lumpy bottoms to keep the flat side up. Very tedious, time consuming and frustrating. Harder still is arranging the stones in a pleasing, fitting pattern. Kind of like putting together a jig saw puzzle where both sides are blank. It drove me mad. The patio and garden walks were first dug out to a depth of 8 inches. The excavation was leveled or sloped where needed, then heavy duty weed mat was laid down. On top of this was placed 4 inches of crushed stone called road base around here. This was watered to settle and then tamped with a heavy thingy to compact. I still cant look at the thingy without feeling my arms and shoulders hurt. Then you start with the stone, one by one, adding and subtracting the crushed stone to level them. I used a six foot level, and a four foot level and line level to keep everything flat or the proper slope where needed. The patio is a 1/8 of a bubble sloped away from the pond to avoid excess runoff into the pond. See my point about choosing stones with wisely? You want flat tops AND bottoms unless you are a glutton for punishment. After you manage to get the stones laid flat water gently then let them sit a bit. When you are sure you have want you want where you want it go back and fill the joints with more crushed stone. Water that in and go back and fill in what settled. You may need to do this several times. Some stones we broke to help with the fit. Again choose your stone wisely. The stuff we had broke where ever you didn't want it to. It did not cleave along any predictable plane. The result was what I wanted. The patio has a row of soldiers (bricks stood on end side by side) around the outside edge. It makes for easier edging and mowing and looks neater. It has proved to be very stable. There has been no settleing, heaving or shifting and it has been in three years. I also couldn't punish myself enough so I did a walk up to our humble front door in a slightly different way. Same excavation process and laid on crushed stone. I sawed 12 X 6 X 4 driveway blocks in half for edging. (Yup, sawed 48 of em.) I wanted the four inch thickness for stability and couldn't find anything else suitable. After placing and leveling the stones I let it sit for over a week before I filled the joints, watered every day and checked each stone to make sure it was stable and still level. Then I went back and put dry mortar between the stones packing each joint tight. I found out that once you start this process you cant stop because the mortar begins to set from moisture in the stone base very quickly. I finished under floodlights rigged up in haste by hubby. I used a cake frosting knife to fill and pack the joints, keeping as much mortar as possible off the top of the stone. Can you tell this was done by a woman? Come on, who else would use a cake frosting knife? When all the joints were filled I misted with water, gently untly the mortar was wet but not puddled. Then I prayed and took two anti-inflammatories. I am happy with it. It has had one winter and I have one small hairline crack in the joint mortar. Would I do it again? Not with this kind of stone. But stone work can be a beautiful addition to a garden. I have posted pics of the front walk. And I am waiting for all to tell me what I should have done that would have made this job not so gosh darn difficult. It was strictly amature night for me.
