The Hardscape Comes Together

Our landscaping plan. 
Double-click to see the plan
at full size

Until three weeks ago, they were lines on a piece of paper, paint on rocks, and suggestions nudged out of mulch and stones.  Today, they are real; and they make a huge difference in defining our new home and garden.

‘They’ are the hardscape.  ‘Hardscape’, for those not familiar with the language of the ‘green’ industry, is that part of a landscape that is built not from plants and trees but, rather, from stone or concrete.  Hardscape can be subtle or it can be front and center.  It can be the concrete plaza around a swimming pool or the hint of rocks in a sea of greenery.

Workmen from Dolan & Co.
installed a cobblestone border to
define the driveway perimeter

For us, the hardscape took on four elements:  a stone wall defining a change in elevation at the front of the property, a patio off our screened porch at the back of the house, a driveway, and a sidewalk from that driveway to the front door.

There are default choices for each of these items: almost all driveways are an asphalt strip from street to garage, for example.  We had a very different idea for ours.  Most people choose asphalt because it is durable.  You can tear out of it in your 4x4 and cause no damage, and a ten-ton truck can park on it with complete confidence.



The completed driveway: ecological,
tasteful, and great to look at

We don’t have a 4x4 and don’t intend to purchase one.  And, anyone tearing out of our driveway has better have flashing lights.  Trucks can idle on the street-side parking pad.  These are the joys of building a home to your own specifications.  And our wish list for our new home included an ecological component:  we wanted a driveway that a) occupied the minimum ‘footprint’ possible and b) was permeable to rainwater.

We got our wish.  The driveway allows us to back out of a side-loading two-car garage and drive into the bays in one motion.  But there is not an extra square foot of unnecessary or unused space and the 70-foot-long path from street to garage narrows quickly to just ten feet.  Cobblestones define the perimeter of the driveway and the ‘pavement’ is nothing but crushed stone.  There are big stones at the base and progressively smaller stones until you reach an inch-deep layer of half-inch stuff.  You can pour water onto it all day long and it will not puddle or run off.  Another plus is that you can hear a car pull into the driveway.

Installing the bluestone sidewalk

Oh, and it looks beautiful.

The default choice for sidewalks is concrete.  I grew up in a home with a three-foot-wide walk that ran straight as a shot from the town’s sidewalk (also concrete) to the front door.  The sidewalk was as uninviting as warm lemonade on a hot afternoon, but at least it got used.  In 21^st Century New England, sidewalks to front doors are ceremonial because front doors and entry foyers have become ceremonial.  Everyone goes in through the garage or a ‘mud room’ door.  Don’t ask why; it’s just the way it is.  But we wanted a sidewalk that would invite usage by providing a walk through our garden on the way to the front entrance.

The finished sidewalk offers a
walk through the garden

For our sidewalk we chose bluestone, which meshes very well with the color of the house.  Instead of the polished stone, though, we chose ‘cleft’ stone with a slightly irregular space.  Over three days, a team of stonemasons from Dolan & Co. (who also replaced the ‘builder’s crud with loam), created a gorgeous four-foot-wide walk (with flares at either end) incorporating a Mondrian-like geometric pattern.  It’s enough to make you want to take up hopscotch.

Assembling the jigsaw puzzle that
will become the patio

Patios are all the rage these days.  They’re outdoor living rooms, dining rooms, and kitchens with pizza ovens, weatherproof sofas, and grills the size of a California King bed.  We wanted something simple: roughly round (but not round), about 14 feet across, and made of stone that could be inter-planted with moss or ferns. 

The completed patio, just add chairs

Scott Dolan sent us to a place in a nearby town with pallets of stone from everywhere. We saw what we wanted almost immediately:  irregularly-shaped pieces of Pennsylvania fieldstone in colors that changed within the same piece of stone. 

That stone was assembled into a jigsaw puzzle that left gaps a few inches wide between each piece.  The surfaces are sufficiently irregular that no one will be plonking down an outdoor sofa and loveseat on it.  But for sitting in simple chairs outside on a summer evening and admiring the outdoors with a glass of wine, it’s well-nigh perfect.



The stone wall and a perennial border
along the street side of the garden

The final piece of the hardscape is the stone wall, the plan for which started off about thirty feet long and one-to-two-feet high.  By the time I finished it, the wall ran to 70 feet and rises to a height of more than three feet for half of its length.  It is the one hardscape element that Betty and I can say we not only envisioned, but executed.

The completed hardscape; the start
of a landscape.  Please excuse the
giant pile of mulch.

In the last few days, we’ve started planting all the perennials and small shrubs that have waited patiently in pots for too long.  We work mostly in the early morning (a 5:30 start time is not unusual), drawing the approving notices of the walkers who like the ambience of our street.  We’ve rewarded them with a colorful shrub and perennial bed right up against the street.

The plants that were in these pots are
now in the ground

The garden is finally taking shape.