Landscaping Rocks Blog

Water and stone are opposites in many ways, yet somehow they are always compatible.  Water, clear and reflective when still, can make wonderful patterns when in motion, creating sounds that can be soothing and restful.  Stone can be a vessel for water.  It can shape a stream, be used as a waterfall, a fountain, or simply shape a pond.  A water feature on the property focuses our attention on the pairing of water and stone. A water feature also becomes a serene focal point while adding the soothing tranquil sounds of moving water.

There are a number of different types of fountains that can move water in a variety of ways, for quite different effects. So when choosing your next outdoor fountain, be sure to consider the location, the amount of space that is available for the size of the fountain, and the style that is going to best suit your landscaping.

Spill Fountains appear to be continually overflowing, with water simply tumbling down the sides of the fountain into the catch basin – the water simply follows gravity. If the fountain’s surface is smooth, the water can be almost undetectable, almost like a shimmering gloss.  A rougher surface produces a livelier dance of light with the water. The traditional tiered spill fountain often resembles a bird bath, with tiered catch basins offering a waterfall effect. Many types of spill fountains are often made of various types of stone and granite.

Spray Fountains shoot water upward in various patterns, from large upright stone like columns to lacy sprays or even just bubbling from the top. To get this effect, assorted fountain heads are used. Splash fountains also shoot water upwards and outwards, however the water is usually sent up through a sculpture of sorts. These types of water features can usually be purchased from a garden and landscape store.

Wall Fountains are a fantastic addition to any home or garden. They pour water from a spout mounted on a vertical surface into a catch basin below.  The spout may be a spigot or a horizontal ledge that creates a small waterfall. Wall fountains can be made of various materials ranging from stones, granite, clay, Fibreglass, metals, glass, and even wood, with some using a combination of materials. Because of their space saving feature, wall fountains have become very popular.

Fountains seem to satisfy the senses of sight and sound, so any of the above styles of water features will enhance your garden and landscaping. With the pleasant flow of water cascading over and thru stone vessels, tranquility and peacefulness are sure to be yours this summer, in your outdoor living area.

Tags: Fieldstone, Flagstones, Granite Stone, Landscaping Rocks, Natural stone, natural stone by mike
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It’s chilly now, but soon enough Spring will bring in warm weather and new demand for landscaping stone. But the landscaping season isn’t the only way weather influences work with natural stone, whether it’s slate, granite or sandstone. When you plan your stone landscaping project it’s important to not only plan your work schedule ahead of time, but think of how you’ll respond to day to day changes in the weather.

The first step to planning your work for the season is to set a start and completion date. If you’re a professional contractor, the ability to provide accurate estimates in which you can complete quality work is essential. If you plan on doing it yourself you can take a more relaxed approach – to a point. You can work on your own time, but take care to account for how much time it should take to do each part of the job, from taking it from a stone retailer to finishing the clean up.

We recommend that you pick a realistic completion date and stick to it so you won’t leave your work half done. After all, we all know someone who has a half-finished landscaping job. That not only looks ugly, but some of these efforts will actually degrade over time. For example, if you do the digging for a stone retaining wall but put off completing it, the soil will eventually erode, wasting all of your effort.

It’s also important to anticipate the weather. Again, a good professional landscaping contractor not only learns to take this into account, but can set up precautions to account for weather issues. Whether you’re hiring tradesmen or doing it yourself, keep in mind that one day of rain can equate to a two or three day delay. Rain changes the consistency of the soil and makes some jobs impossible. If your job is scheduled to take place in rainy months like April and May, adjust your schedule to allow for one or two weeks of delay due to rain.

Planning for weather conditions will ensure that you can plan a move or renovation for your property without interference from contractors and machinery, and without having to worry about working around materials and scrap. While you might dodge the worst of the rainy season, including its delays in your estimate means that you can be confident that everything is ready to go.

If you want to find out more about realistically scheduling a stone landscaping job, drop by our showroom or call us. In addition to being a natural stone wholesaler for landscapers and architects, we bring decades of experience in the stone laying trade, and can help you set realistic goals and find the best natural stone to meet them.

Tags: English, Fieldstone, Flagstones, Granite Stone, Landscaping Rocks by mike
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Homeowners, landscapers and even architects will forget landscaping basics from time to time. It isn’t enough to just be technically proficient laying granite stone and other landscaping rocks, or to only provide a solid set of stone walls. A quality landscaping job needs to look balanced – in other words, its elements need to work together to both look good and make it easy for people to enjoy in a practical sense.

Over my years building stone retaining walls, stone patio features, doing general landscaping and acting as a stone retailer and wholesaler who advises landscapers, I’ve come to appreciate the difference a balanced landscape makes to appearance and usability.

For example, imagine if your driveway goes up to the centre of your property, possibly to end in a roundabout or take a “U” shape in front of the main entrance. On a sizable property, just clustering everything by the entrance makes it look too busy, so you’ll have to landscape either side of the driveway.

If you build up one side with retaining walls surrounding an extensive garden, with stone steps leading up, while leaving the other side with nothing but some trees and driveway-level flower beds your landscape will look imbalanced from the front, both in terms of how developed each side is, and by relative level. Practically speaking, your guests have to cross the driveway to enjoy either open space or get to the garden, which is a nuisance.

If you built up a mix of garden space and open recreational space on either side, you can enjoy both sides and keep traffic over the driveway to a minimum. You don’t need to make both sides exactly the same, but ask yourself this: Do both sides attract my eyes equally? Is there any one location I would never go to because it looks bare or is annoying due to a slope or poor sign lines?

The important thing is the overall view and practical comfort, which should attract you on all sides and blend naturally from any direction, so there’s always something interesting to see, and you don’t feel “blocked” from a particular feature. Take care that a focal point like a trees or stone isn’t so dominating that it causes the imbalance. Sometimes, on particularly “loud” feature is all it takes to throw your landscape off kilter.

Come up to out landscaping stone showroom and talk to us. We can advise you how different varieties of landscaping stone can help you provide balance to your property through properly placed stone walls, flagstone steps and patios, and more. We have the experience on staff to answer your questions and look forward to hearing from you.

Tags: English, Flagstones, Granite Stone, Landscaping Rocks, Retaining Walls by mike
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As time is such a valued commodity nowadays, a low maintenance property lets you be creative and enjoy the property without devoting the long hours you need for work and family. That’s why low maintenance landscaping is not only a practical choice for institutions and property management firms but also individuals who want a beautiful landscape, but aren’t sure of their ability to make a time or financial commitment.

Once completed, you can take care of a low maintenance landscape for a fraction of the time required for its high maintenance counterpart. The disadvantage is that a low maintenance property can rarely match the spectacular features of a harder to maintain properties.

Still, you can get a lot out of a little effort by sticking to a design philosophy of elegant simplicity. This gives you low maintenance property gardens, but only at key locations where they’ll have maximum visual impact. Even the most labour intensive property can end up looking gaudy and overdone compared to a low maintenance landscape with correct composition and a solid construction/

Use landscaping stones such as sandstone and granite stone as tough decorative elements. If you choose the right variety from a stone retailer it can serve as its own decoration above and beyond any gardens or the other soft landscaping features it supports.

Stone retaining walls along with other practical or decorative stone walls are great additions to a landscaped property. Retaining walls let you reshape the property to be less prone to serious erosion, and if you choose the right landscaping stone (such as sandstone, limestone or granite) your walls, if properly built, should work perfectly without demanding maintenance for several years.

Lawns that have a rolling appearance also add interest to a property, and can be used to better control drainage than a flat grassy area. The key is to combine practical and visual goals, and try to do a little perfectly, instead of doing too much with too little money and materials.

Tags: English, Granite Stone, Landscaping Rocks, Retaining Walls, Sand Stone by mike
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High maintenance properties are show pieces. They’ve got abundant flower beds, rock gardens, water features, flowering shrubs and trees, often arranged across multiple levels and combined with stone retaining walls and other stone landscaping features. The result can be breathtaking, but without regular management weeds, erosion and general neglect can make them extremely unattractive. That’s why they’re called “high maintenance properties.”

Two types of people are interested in high maintenance properties. The first group is financially capable of carrying the expenses inherent in keeping up the property. They can hire maintenance teams to do the watering, pruning, planting, mowing and other chores required to maintain the property’s spectacular appearance. The wealthiest property owners can afford to buy expertise so they’ll have people on hand who can, for example, recommend Penn Blue sandstone for a path or decorative wall.

The other typical owner is a retired, semi-retired or a dedicated workaholic (I’m in that last category) who wants to constantly work on the property. He enjoys it as a hobby, or is a landscaping professional who wants to demonstrate his skills on his own real estate. One of the advantages here is that if you do it yourself, you’ll be able to explore your own ideas thoroughly, instead of describing them in vague terms for a contractor to interpret. If you imagine a hardscape that uses a certain type of granite stone, for example, you can make it happen – as long as you learn the correct skills.

No matter which category belong to, choosing high maintenance properties can, once you apply the right mindset, help you relax, even if you’re taking on a substantial amount of work to develop the land into something you’ll love – and that’s because you will love it. The great thing about these projects is that you are ultimately investing in yourself. It’s your land and your dreams taking shape, so as the project continues your ideas will take you down unexpected paths – a stone retaining wall with a particular bend, shrubs where you didn’t expect them, and other examples of creativity born from your own ideas and the practical aspects of working with the land. That special relationship between your dreams and the real earth and stone of landscaping, creates genuine beauty that is definitely worth the effort.

Tags: English, Granite Stone, Retaining Walls by mike
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Stone Haven, Inc. celebrates its 9^th year in business this season. Owners Mike and Sue Stone have brought Stone Haven from its small beginnings to one of the largest natural stone retailers in Eastern Canada. As the business has grown, Stone Haven has been able to expand its product offerings and enhance its service quality. An exclusive delivery service with J.J. Towing allows Stone Haven to offer 24 hour delivery of stock products. J.J. Towing’s boom truck has the ability to place product close to the job site. Six trucks help ensure prompt deliveries on busy days. Their service is second to none.

Stone Haven’s vast selection of landscape stone and thin stone for masonry brings tradespeople, home owners and architects from the Laurentians, West Island Montreal, the City of Montreal, the South Shore, Sherbrooke and Drummondville down autoroute 10 to take advantage of the variety and expertise on hand.

Tradespeople take advantage of Stone Haven’s wide selection. They encourage their clients to visit the business’ three and a half acre site and outdoor pergola showroom to help them make wise choices. Visitors can view different colours, sizes and shapes of natural stone from Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, the United States, China and Brazil. The outdoor pergola showroom offers displays of patio, walkway and step stones, as well as wall stone and fountain displays.

This year owner Mike Stone will share his over 40 years of patio and wall laying experience through classes on how to build patios, walkways and stone walls. Classes will be by appointment only.

Visit Stone Haven at 570 Knowlton Road, in Knowlton, Quebec. You’ll be able to view pallets of Pennsylvania Blue Stone, slate, granite, limestone and much more, in a pleasant environment where expert advice is always close at hand.

Tags: English, Granite Stone, Landscaping Rocks by mike
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