Beginner Gardening: Ideas for walkway / landscape around a deck , 0 by fatima526

fatima526 wrote:
While waiting for the grass to grow …

I cataloged all my stones with their dimensions so I knew what I had ( 24 stones total). I had to determine which situations required a certain size stone. After that, I picked out a few stones that I wanted to feature or put in certain areas.(interesting color or shape) You cannot try every combination before you install, they are too heavy to keep moving around. But I tried the few that were important to me.

Then, I ran a mason string at the height I wanted the path (top of each stone) to run, and confirmed it is level with a line level. The ground slopes along the path length, and each stone has different thickness. So there is always a different amount of stone dust needed for each stone. Draw marks in the dirt a little larger than the length / width of the stone, then fill that area with stone dust just high to leave for the thickness of the stone, maybe a little higher. Check the work with a level along the way. After I laid each stone in place, I would get on it (pretend like a surfboard) with feet on opposite corners, and see if it wobbles. If one end needed more dust, I staged it next to where needed, lifted the end of the stone with crowbar in one hand, and scooped more dust underneath with the other hand.

Afterwards I had to go back and adjust a few stones.

One stone broke in half when I let it fall its length off the hand truck I used to move them. After that I always used a crowbar that has a hook on one end to raise a stone enough to get my hand under it, or to lower a stone to the ground. Always used heavy gloves, and kneepads.

Umbrella was very important to comfortable work when sunny … drag it around as needed.