Outdoor Landscape Designs

by Rudy
(Arizona)

I'm working on a granite wall and fountain. As you can see, I got a little carried away once I had some success at this technique. The original project was much smaller, but I got fairly fast and enjoyed building it.

A school boy about 12 or 13 was peaking around yesterday afternoon and I told him to go ahead and take a look. He obviously was curious. He remarked without prompting that the other side (street side) looked like a "stone can," and that the side he was looking at was, "well, round." He was sort of at a loss for words, I think. I laughed to myself on and off about the stone can concept. He was probably thinking about the shape of a can.

My neighbor has a difficult ravine and my project shields me substantially from his difficulty.

I flattened out the front yard a few years back because one side joined the ravine.

The neighbor looks at the same level of fitted stone from his side so I actually built two walls and filled the space with mortar and river rock.

I spent half my time at the rock suppliers yard picking pieces that I visualized would fit in difficult places. And that's why no mason uses natural stone anymore. Probably some custom homes owners will factor in the extra expense, but most use the cultured stone. I just wanted to work with natural stone.