A stone wall does more than make a clean border along your lawn. It's a handsome visual statement in itself, a great way to add depth and texture to a flat, featureless yard. If you have poor or clay soil, just fill the interior with topsoil and compost and you'll have a wonderful raised planting bed. It also provides good drainage, making it a great solution for low-lying, soggy gardens. And it's a good way to terrace a sloped yard and create nice, flat gardens. To reduce maintenance we added a 4-in. deep trench that we lined with plastic edging and filled with mulch. The edging keeps grass roots from creeping into the stone wall, and the mulch provides a mowing track for the lawn mower wheels. With taller types of grass, you can mow right over the plastic border and cut the lawn edge cleanly. There's no need to trim the grass. This project doesn't require any special skills, just a strong back. Besides a good shovel and a wheelbarrow, you'll need a cold chisel and a 2-lb.maul for breaking stones and driving edging stakes.
Figure the cost at about $10 per foot of wall. Design your raised bed to blend into the contours of your yard like a natural feature. You can handle slopes in one of two ways. Either let your wall follow the slope of the yard for an informal look, or level the stones as we did and step the wall up or down as the slope requires to maintain approximately the same height. The exact size of stacking stone for walls varies considerably by region. Visit a local landscape supplier to check types. (Ours is Chilton limestone.) For lawn edging, limit the height of your wall to two courses so you won't have stones falling out. Measure your wall length and make a sketch. The stone dealer will help you figure out the quantities of all the materials you need. The stone will probably be sold by the ton or pallet and it's heavy. Have it delivered and dropped as close to the wall location as possible. And have gravel or sand delivered to use as a setting bed for the stone (Photo 2) as well as topsoil to fill behind the wall (Photo 5).
The stone or landscaping dealer will help you calculate how much of these you need. Follow the photos for step-by-step installation instructions. Get started by laying out the border with a garden hose or paint. We drew a curve by setting a string at a center point and marking an arc with paint (Photo 1). The trench width will vary depending on the width of the stone. Add 6 in. to the stone width (2 in. for the mowing edge plus 4 in. extra). Generally it's best to keep the bottom row of stone an inch or so below the original soil level, but this will vary if you keep the stones level and the yard isn't level (what yard is?). At some point, you may have to step the stones up or down or use thinner or thicker stones. There's no rule here. Experiment when you lay the stones for the best appearance. Lay the stones that have the most irregular faces in the first row so you can place the irregular face down in the gravel and level the top (Photo 3). Vary the sizes and colors for the best look.
Chip off irregularities with the maul and chisel. Then add the second row (Photo 4). Make this row as stable as possible so the stones won't rock and fall off. As a last resort, stabilize the stones by shoving stone chips into the gaps. Lay landscape fabric against the back of the wall before backfilling to keep dirt from washing out through the stone (Photo 5). Then install the plastic edging in front. Add organic mulch to finish up the mowing edge.Turn autumn leaves into something special by shredding them with the electric THE close of the gardening season is always bittersweet. Though there are few more beautiful places on earth than Vermont in the autumn, I just hate saying goodbye to all my plants and trading this lush, green world for one that's cold and white. But there are also plenty of good things about fall. The weather is cool and the humidity is low. Once we've had our first killing frost, the frantic pace of the harvest season is over. It's time for apples and potatoes, pumpkins and mums.
And, it's time to reap the season's most abundant crop: leaves. The longer I garden, the greater my appreciation for the value of organic matter. And one of the very best sources of organic matter is autumn leaves. Leaves are packed with trace minerals that trees draw up from deep in the soil. When added to your garden, leaves feed earthworms and beneficial microbes. They lighten heavy soils and help sandy soils retain moisture. They make an attractive mulch in the flower garden. They're a fabulous source of carbon to balance the nitrogen in your compost pile. And they insulate tender plants from cold. Here are a few easy ways that I've found to put leaves to work in my garden. Shredded leaves take up much less space. First, shred up as many of them as you can. I don't have a leaf shredder, though I'm considering purchasing one. Instead, I let the leaves pile up on the lawn and then drive over them a few times with the lawn mower. Shredding one leaf into five or ten smaller pieces does several good things.
It increases the surface area, giving microbes many more places to work. It prevents the leaves from packing together into layers that won't let water or air penetrate. And it reduces the volume dramatically. Once the leaves are shredded, I rake them up. Most of them go into plastic trash bags that get stashed in the barn for next spring when I'll use them as mulch in my perennial gardens. In time, shredded leaves become something called leaf mold, which makes a fabulous mulch. What's more, it does wonders for the soil, and I like the look of it. As for the rest of the shredded leaves, some get put aside for a month or so to be used for mulching my garlic, tender perennials and roses. The rest get carted over to the vegetable and cutting gardens. The beds in these two gardens are permanent, so it's easy to focus all my soil-building energy right in the growing zone. As the beds get cleaned out, I cover the soil with a layer of shredded leaves and fork that in a bit. On top goes some granular organic fertilizer and — if I have any — some compost.
By spring it's all a crumbly mix that plants would be crazy not to love. Gather leaves in half the time with these Giant Hands Leaf Collectors To mulch the asparagus bed, I first cut the fronds down to about 12 inches. The bed gets a good helping of granular fertilizer and is then covered with a 3-inch layer of shredded leaves. Not all the leaves in my yard get shredded, though if I had the time I'd probably do so. By November, I've usually run out of steam and simply pack the rest of the whole leaves into my compost bin. I add these leaves to the working compost pile throughout the year to balance the food scraps and other materials that are usually high nitrogen. The leaves also keep the pile from getting compacted and soggy. For me, keeping busy is the best way to fend off the blues, which is how I sometimes feel as winter approaches. Raking and hauling and digging and spreading keep me moving and my gardens just get better and easier to care for every year.
If you have an abundant source of leaves in the fall, shred them. Your garden will benefit in a big way. Here how to use them: Insulate Tender Plants: A 6-inch blanket of leaves protects tender plants from winter wind and cold. Cover cold-hardy vegetables—such as carrots, kale, leeks and beets—and you'll be able to harvest them all winter. Boost Your Compost Pile: Carbon-rich leaves balance high-nitrogen compost ingredients such as fresh grass clippings. Improve Your Soil: Mix shredded leaves right into your garden. Next spring, your soil will be teeming with earthworms and other beneficial organisms. Make "Leaf Mold": Simply rake the leaves into a big pile. If you shred them, they will decompose faster, but you can still make leaf mold without shredding. After one to three years, fungus will have broken the leaves down to a special compost that smells like a walk through the woods. Leaf mold is high in calcium and magnesium and retains three to five times its weight in water—rivaling peat moss.