Shadow Dance Stoneworks

A boulder retaining wall can be a beautiful thing. In the city, the front of your house is the face of your property. It can really add value to your home if you create a beautiful, welcoming feeling by adding landscape features such as retaining walls and beautiful gardens. Here we have a homeowner who was looking to do something with an ugly, eroding slope of lawn under two huge evergreens. A boulder retaining wall was a natural fit.

A coworker and I built this while I was working at Local Roots Landscapers. I ordered about 4 tons of glacial boulders, and we used a large portion of those. Sometimes you get a large portion of really round boulders that are hard to work with, so there is the need to have more then enough on hand.

This wall was about 18 inches to 2 feet high.

This article has a fantastic slide show of some major stonework that went down at the International Stonework Symposium that happened a couple months ago. I wish I could have made it there…Check it out.

Shadow Dance Stoneworks is proud to partner with Giving Tree Gardens to provide a comprehensive approach to all your sustainable landscaping needs!

A Permaculture Design Principle states: Integrate rather than separate. Shadow Dance Stoneworks and Giving Tree Gardens are joining forces to create dynamic outdoor spaces that are enchanting, functional, and beautiful, utilizing high quality stonework and vibrant gardens. Together, our two companies offer a wide variety of landscaping services, including all aspects of landscape and garden design, installation, and maintenance, as well as permaculture consultations, vegetable garden creation, and natural stonework construction.

As environmentally conscious businesses focused on building a sustainable future, we promote rainwater retention, using native species, and building healthy soil and ecosystems. Creating connections, whether it is between a butterfly and a milkweed, the rain and the river, or you and your neighbor, is a key aspect to building networks that sustain our lives.

Visit Giving Tree Gardens’ website to browse Russ Henry’s awesome newsletter, The Seed.

Giving Tree Gardens

The picture below is the patio from the other side. A patio has to slope away from the house foundation, and sometimes making sure the slope is perfect takes more time then you would imagine.

I built this small retaining wall out of Chilton wallstone. This is a very sunny spot, and I think that the mass of the stone will only add warmth to this planting bed. As backfill, I used excess topsoil mixed with organic compost, and the client was going to do the planting. I think the little wall adds a lot of character to the patio.