Etched in stone

If your garden is looking disheveled, or the design is fuzzy and weak, a few choice stones might bind it back up into an elegant package. Not the big farm field boulders, that can look rather displaced in a suburban setting, but a tidy package of square cut flagstone. Sometimes it's called Owen Sound ledgerock, or Wiarton cut stone pavers. There are many names, but it's limestone, it's beautiful and it's expensive.

"The price right now is about $8.50 a square foot," says Verne Gorven the Vice President of Cap Brick in Burlington (www.capbrick.com). Gorven is speaking from his lovely showroom where, on a wretched winter day he is feeling rather lonesome.

"We love the average Joe," Gorven says with gusto. And he's all for the average Joe or Jill buying square cut flagstone and taking on a garden improvement project. Right now in the off-season, the time is perfect he says to design a new feature and shop for stone.

Imagine just a small patio of cut stone with an edging of hostas and ferns, or a discrete walkway with scotch moss growing between the flagstone and a border of hellebores, daffodils and purple sage.

"It's definitely a do-it-yourself project," says Gorven. "There are so many people creating outdoor rooms, it's an extension of the house. They're building outdoor fireplaces, bars, built-in barbecues, and tying it together with beautiful stonework."

Cap Brick, like so many other landscape suppliers offers seminars that show step by step how to install flagstone.

"The base is the most important thing," says Gorven. Bob May would agree. May is laying a square cut stone pathway in a Hamilton greenhouse. He has done many like it before.

"Put the majority of your work into making a sound, level base," he says. "A four inch base or more of limestone screenings is good. Don't rush that part." He extends the base a good two inches or more beyond the borders of the path or patio, so that the stones are stable right to the edge.

The screenings, which can be bought by the cubic yard from a builder or landscape supply company, should be damp but not soaking wet. Once the screenings are in place, May uses a plate tamper, or power vibrator, to pack the screenings down.

"The secret to using the tamper, is to go over the screenings until they're so packed the plate starts to bounce. When you run it back and forth it shouldn't leave a line, and you shouldn't see your footprints. Then you know it's packed well."

To tamp down a 10 by 20 foot patio, May estimates would take about an hour. Often a half-day rental of the plate tamper is all that's needed. The well-packed base helps keep the patio or walkway from sinking over time.

Then it's time to "put an ear to the ground to see if it's level," according to May. By getting right down flat, May can see the slightest change in grade. He also advises do-it-yourselfers to walk on the base, "You can feel if it's level through your feet."

From that point, putting the square cut stones in place only requires the slightest adjustment to make them level.

Once the path or patio is in place, he finishes it off with brick sand that is swept into the joints between the flagstone.

"Make sure the sand is totally dry before you use it. I spread it out on a driveway to dry and then sweep it all up, and sweep into the joints," May says.

It is a joy to watch him work, meticulously fitting the stones. "What I love about it, it's very particular. It's precise work."

But still the type of work that the average person could do according to May. A one foot square piece of cut stone weighs about 20 pounds, just a nice weight for toning the triceps, not rupturing a disc.

If the price of the square cut stone is too dear, random flagstone is a fraction of the cost at about $2.25 a square foot. But both May and Gorven agree that fitting and installing random stone requires much more time, because it is like piecing together a giant jigsaw puzzle.

So it might be an idea to set in stone now, your ideas for paths and patios, before the spring garden shows like Canada Blooms, call thousands of armchair masons to action. That way, in April when the frost is out of the ground, and the soil isn't too wet an elegant stone construction project can begin.

Browse websites like Owen Sound Ledgerock Limited (www.ledgerock.com) or Mason's Masonry (www.masonsmasonry.com) in Toronto for information on types of stone and products for installing it.

Before you know it you'll be ordering Eramosa bushhammered pavers and having a tamper party.