DryStoneGarden

cabernet stone

This was the first wall I built using Cabernet stone, a slatey type of stone from back east. I think the stone for this particular wall still has the best color of all the cabernet walls I’ve built.

cabernet wall detail

I usually avoid stacking across the point of another stone like I did in this section of the wall, but it’s fun to break the rules every once in a while. The point can act as a wedge and cause the stone to crack from the weight above it, but this wall is short and that stone doesn’t have a lot of weight above it so it should be okay.

cabernet stone

Another section of the wall, with Salvia clevelandii “Allen Chickering” going crazy on the right side of the photo. I had a fun pallet of stone to work with for this job; I found a couple of nice stretcher stones (a stone that stretches onto three or more stones instead of the usual two, great for breaking a long joint or solidifying a section made of smaller stones) and an angled capstone to step the wall down naturally. Typically, where a wall steps down we also try to plant something low and bushy to soften that spot like we did with silver thyme here. Ever since this wall, I’ve been pretty much hooked on cabernet as my wall stone of choice.

ryan 11/29

Tags: cabernet

This entry was posted on Friday, November 28th, 2008 at 9:04 pm and is filed under stone, walls. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.