Retaining Wall Rock Garden

        In order to keep with the natural forest look, even outside of the actual 'forest', we decided to put a rock garden in the front of the house. When we first moved here ten years ago, we put a flower garden in that exact spot. But flowers really aren't the look we're going for, plus they didn't grow so well in our awful soil. So after letting nature reclaim that section of yard for years, late last fall we made it a rock garden. Then the weeds took over before it was even finished. This year's goal was to build a retaining wall around it using flat stones that match the walkway.

       When building a retaining wall with stones, your best bet is to stick with flat ones. It is possible to do with rounded rocks but much trickier to get them to stack properly. With flat rocks you can obviously layer them without much difficulty. But, this doesn't means it's easy.

      The first step, well aside from figuring out where your retaining wall is going to go, is to actually find your flat stones. Seems easy, that is until you go out there and try to find enough to complete your project. As always, get more than you think you'll need. The fatter the better. Remember, you want some height here because over time your wall will sink into the ground so grab the thickest flat stones you can find. Get all sizes but lean more towards the larger ones. How large, as large as you can carry.

      Once you have enough rocks, you don't, go get more. Start with the biggest rocks you have, both in length, width and height, and lay them in their proper places. These are the base stones and need to be sturdy in order to make your wall stable. Most of the rocks I used for the base stack were roughly 4 inches thick, some even thicker. This will give the rest of your wall more support. (Note: I started on the right and worked my way to the left, doing all three layers at once, rather than laying the base stack first. However, I don't recommend doing it this way. It was easier for us because of the rocks that were in our way from the pre-existing setup.)

      Now that your base layer is in place, you're going to want to put your longer rocks down next. Bridge them across the gaps in the first layer, much like a brick wall. This will make it sturdy whereas putting them directly on top of your first layer without off setting them over their neighbors will make your wall much more susceptible to toppling over.

Where necessary, slide small flat rocks under your main rocks to keep them from wiggling. Odds are your flat stones are not completely flat, at least not all of them, and sometimes they need a little boost. And then sometimes they'll need to be trimmed down, a hammer or large solid rock will come in handy here. But always try to exhaust all your options before adding or taking away, this is why we got so many rocks to begin with. It's a trial and error process and eventually one of your stones will fit perfectly, you just have to turn and flip them a lot. Don't worry, rocks don't get dizzy. At least I don't think they do.

      Two or three layers should complete your wall. Anything taller might require two rows for each layer and some much larger rocks. So if you need to go higher, keep in mind that you'll need larger stones for your lower layers and making the wall sturdier becomes a necessity. Make sure none of your rocks are wiggling at all, on shorter walls a little wiggling isn't the end of the world. It's not like you're going to be walking on it. Unless you are, in which case you will need some super flat and thick rocks. But the average retaining wall is great for sitting on if you've constructed it correctly.

      Here's where our paths may diverge, depending on what your wall is for. Mine is for more rocks to go inside, the wall is simply to keep them from spilling over into the yard. So I start with flat rocks for the base layer inside, see, those extra rocks are really coming in handy now. Cover as much of the ground with flat rocks as possible, the more layers like this the better, it'll stop the weeds from bursting through. Then throw a bunch of other rocks over your flat ones, preferably ugly ones you don't mind burying. I don't want my pile of rocks inside to come up to the top of the wall so I'll use just a few inches of stones, topped off by the prettier ones I want to be seen. I'll even throw some big ones on top to be prominently displayed. And your retaining wall is complete.

New Forest Floor

      We got the first large log for the forest today and decided to start a new section of the forest floor. You see, when you go into the woods, there's no grass. Obviously a number of reasons cause this, number one being that there's no sunlight because the trees block it. Our trees aren't big enough to cast shade yet, it'll be quite a while. The other main reason there's no grass is because the leaves and pine needles make a thick blanket that grass and many weeds can't grow through. Since the trees in our forest only have a handful of leaves to drop, they won't be creating a carpet any time soon. So again, we figured we'd help it along.

      Last summer marked the beginning of our faux forest floor. It consisted of orange pine needles with a few sticks and old pine cones to give it a realistic feel. Overall the look was spectacular and it gave the impression of being a real forest. The majority of our trees are pine so it seemed only natural to have fallen pine needles everywhere. But, we knew that weeds would burst through. We did not however realize how quickly they would rear their ugly little heads. And I mean ugly, one of these things looks like a cactus with prickers that poke right through heavy duty gloves.

      So we picked up the needles, put them aside and fought back. The first plan was to use landscaping fabric. Yeah, no, waste of money. You see, that's why I don't put any money into the forest, go natural, it's cheaper. Well, almost natural, we used cardboard and newspaper. It did the trick. A few layers of newspaper, a layer of corrugated cardboard on top of that, then the dead pine needles to give it some natural beauty. It stopped almost all of the weeds, for the Summer and Fall. Then Spring came around and the weeds popped right up through the softened cardboard like it wasn't even there. Albeit not as many, but a lot of them. The only downside was that it didn't feel natural walking on the cardboard covered ground. It looked like a real forest but it didn't feel like one. The needles were authentic, even the snapping of tiny twigs beneath my feet, but the cardboard never felt like real ground, no matter how much it rained.

      This year we're trying it without the cardboard. The plan is to simply make it a much thicker layer of ground cover. This year we're also adding a lot of leaves to the mix. With some of our most successful transplants being leafy trees, we decided to adapt our forest floor to its surroundings. So we loaded up a couple bucket loads of leaves, pine needles, sticks and pine cones from the woods out back and dumped them in the yard, mostly beneath the new log. It's amazing how little a couple five gallon buckets will get you. We knew this from last year but it's always a disappointment. The rain prevented us from going back for a second trip so right now the tiny area we covered is only about two inches thick, half of what we're going for this year. But we'll see how it fares without a lower layer to block the weeds.