Flagstone patio, fire pit, steps and sitting wall, Emerald zoysia sod, and drainage. That's the not so condensed title of this post.

Here's a project I recently designed/installed in Vestavia Hills, AL -

 

This project objective was to create an additional outdoor space to the existing deck. The middle rail of the deck was removed to allow access to the flagstone patio area.

Elevation and drainage were given careful consideration while designing the project.

The sitting wall was installed so it could be backfilled creating a slight slope away from the patio.

This drainage basin with a heavy duty plastic grate was our fix for a substantial drainage problem. There are 2 four inch pvc pipes that handle the rain water depositing it 110 feet at the other end of the property.

The fire pit will be put to good use in the Fall and Winter months.

 

My brother, John, helped me with this project which included installing six pallets of Emerald zoysia sod.

90 percent of this patio was installed using a buff polymer sand. Method: The original dirt was hand tamped. Then #57 gravel was installed follow by a 1 to 2 inch layer of #8910 gravel. We followed the addition of the gravels by tamping with a plate compactor. Finally, a thin layer of sand was added which assisted in leveling the flagstone.The polymer sand was used as a substitute for a mortar grout. The product set up great.

Here are the before pictures!

What's a landscaper to do during water restrictions and severe drought?

Hardscaping!

Well, the 3 month drought finally ended a few days ago while I was finishing up this job in Helena, AL. There were water restrictions in some places and the ground had become really hard, so the rain was exciting. Up until this week, no one has been interested in planting anything this fall. This job was a drought stricken-ed landscaper's dream....stone work!
Job - Steps, walls, grading work, prep for Spring sod work.
 

SNAP! Transforming a Mulch Path into a Solid Stone Path

Large (and heavy) snapped slabs of brown stone, quarried near Oneonta, AL, is what I used to form my step treads for this converted mulch to stone path on Lake Martin, near Alexander City, AL. Each slab was about 40" by 14" by 3" to 4" thick, giving the overall look of the project a "solid" appeal. I decided to make the riser heights just under 6" and that made traversing the incline easy and gave the project the look I was after. In between each snap stone step are lengths of Alabama brown flagstone walkway...the width is a consistent 40", same as the step treads. Beige mortar was used in the mortar joints for continuity. Finally, moss rock was the stone of choice for what remained of the risers. The use of darker moss rock was a subtle attempt to break up the shades of brown in the step treads and flagstone.


Note: What you don't see is the hand excavation, the relentless tamping, and the ample amounts of gravel, concrete and rebar that was used under the ornamental stone to make this pathway reliable. Also, there was plenty of consideration given to where steps were placed and how to incorporate the curves and gradations along the length of the pathway.
Additional Note: It is quite interesting to watch large stone being snapped at the quarry. A large piece of stone (for instance, it could be say... 4' by 7' by 4" thick) is placed on a table with heavy duty rollers and the size being ordered is marked off. Then the stone is placed under hydraulic splitters where they are slowly lowered until the slab is broken off at the desired dimensions. It's a much better look, for certain applications, than cut stone.

Front stoop transformation...

I took an ol' front porch stoop made of pine decking and rails and converted into a stone stoop with a flagstone surface and some nice wrought iron railing. Job number one was to demolish the existing wood deck and steps.

Job number two was to build the new stoop! The Wrought Iron work was done by Howell Steel in Maylene, AL. The remainder of the work was done by yours truly. After much measurin', and levelin', and eye ballin'; here's the finished project:

Extreme landscaping in Homewood, Alabama

Extreme, in the sense that the job was to tame the slope and gain access to a flat area at the top of the slope. In short, the area was de-weeded, hand graded, and a combination of softscape and hardscape incorporated into the design.