Boulders and Rock Mulches – Animated Talks With Stones

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As the systems and machinery involved in landscaping have evolved, we have become better able to do more with elements long-overlooked but readily available for use. Rocks and their large cousins – boulders – are the perfect example of this.

Below is a yard whose overall beauty just about entirely consists of a marvelously expansive view of the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the distance. The foreground is dotted with homes, also in the distance, which provide a unique perspective of various layers of depth and a somewhat mind-clearing vision of distance and natural geology.

The landscaping requirements of a home such as this insist that the view be maintained. Yet, there is still the more immediate and entirely satisfying effect of “local” – back yard – gorgeousness that always provides a landscaper with design possibilities. This couple wanted an unobtrusive but running  water feature and something other than just the standard rear yard with flat lawn and a fence.

Our solution was to provide the small water feature in a corner of the lot which would still be visible and aurally satisfying, with motion and activity and a lawn which was “different” – in this case a rolling series of small hills, studded with boulders.

(click all images to enlarge)

Rocks are some of my best friends. Let’s face it, they offer a minimum of argument over even the thorniest issues and they behave once set into place. There is a lot to be said about this sort of loyal adherence to Natural Law. And, yes, I have abused the odd rock, I admit it freely. I have thrown them, hit them with baseball bats and golf clubs, used them as weapons against my enemies – the “bike-chasing barking dog” for example – and sometimes shamefully using them against bad friends.

Some, however, you can’t do much to. They talk back.

Some of the bigger guys you can tweak with machinery the size of Texas – just make sure they roll in the right direction when you stack ’em.

This applies to all versions of rocks larger than a fist –

No doubt, you will have noticed right away that the boulders and stones shown so far have all been of the “River Rock” variety – meaning rocks who were either tumbled under glaciers for miles and miles under enormous weight and thereby rendered rounded or else they were immersed in rapids of fast-flowing creeks and rivers with the same result.

Meanwhile

Some other rocks cracked liked broken crystals during some epoch in the less-distant past, immune from the rushing waters of creeks and rivers, and maintaining and still-ancient, yet freshly-fractured look which allows yet another approach to working with them. They can make a bizarre, yet somehow artistic mulch, and one I personally embraced, loving the mix and the radical nature of the stones themselves, especially when mixed with similarly-fractured boulders:

Surprisingly enough, they can even work well in the midst of water – the color and fractured nature revealing sharp breaks which contrast with the softness and depth of the water around it.

All in all, they also take up space and are quite handsome, taken individually – no matter their origin.

Amazing Rhododendrons – Part 2 of Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden

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Interestingly, this was written in 2009, revised in 2011 and left untouched. I kind of feel no need the change anything – even the cold part, lol.

I’m on a small story-telling bender. This one is recirculated yet again, for the reasons I outlined dealing with my post speaking of my experience with 100 sticks of dyanmite and landscaping, a couple of posts below this one.

Fortunately, this post here has abundant rhododendron pictures, which was the impetus behind the posting in the first place, until I wandered off into the personal. This is also important because it is freezing outdoors, lol. I mean, not a little.

(It is all of 7 degrees here in Louisville, Kentucky, as I write this. It was a balmy 27 yesterday at times,  so I am more driven to see something to mitigate this Winter pain. My stay in Louisville has been marvelous from a strictly people aspect. Taking care of my Mother is like – well – it IS actually – a walk in the park. No stress, lots of family for a change and my peripatetic daughter is in classes in San Diego. Life is good – if freaking cold. And it is cold. I do not much like it, lol. Let me rephrase this – it is dreadful. I am far too ‘West Coast-ish’, if that’s a term, which 42 years there would do to one. Plus, we get another few months of this, unless Global Warming gets it done!

This post was composed in May of 2009. It is a long one, filled with pictures of flowers, lakes, sun, ducks and some writing about someone I don’t mind reposting about – a fine person. Just to keep the Springtime vibes alive, read and I hope you enjoy:)

“Extravagance” is the term I am so often set with concerning Rhododendrons. Like the Proteus plant, the simple size, girth and literal glamor of the bloom have few peers anywhere. The profuseness of a Rhododendron when in bloom I honestly believe has no peer anywhere in Nature. I love so many plants – they have been my stock in trade – but this one hovers in another sphere of general gorgeousness.

(click any image to enlarge like mad…click twice for superdetail))

In the Northwest, there are rhododendron gardens all over the place. This week (May) in Florence, Oregon – on the Oregon Coast – there is a Rhododendron Festival, a full-fledged Rhodie fest complete with parades and displays and thousands of believers. Of course, everyone loves a party – so there is that. It’s been a long winter here – so there is that as well. But they’ve been having this particular festival for long years now. Love for the Rhododendron is not new here.

For purely selfish Photo Contest reasons, I add this earlier-blooming item here. I can’t imagine it not “belonging” anywhere, frankly.

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When I lived in British Columbia, naturally a mainstay for visitors was the trip over to Butchart Gardens in Victoria – a world-famous garden and rightfully so, rich indeed with its own stash of thousands of rhododendrons and azaleas, like this Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden in Portland, just 4 times bigger and ten times more groomed and cultivated.

Naturally, there are plants other then Rhodies to slake the thirst for extravagant beauty. Take these pictures, above and below, of Double File Viburnums – how those branches seem to be wearing epaulets of blooms down their long arms, making them appear to be wearing instead of producing them.

These are somewhat groomed for the appearance, yet this plant casually shoots off these blooms in a very regular fashion no matter how determined its pruners are to show off.

Other places in British Columbia and Washington have rhododendron festivals. And many, many other places have small parks – often made by devoted Rhodites (my newest shiniest original English! 😉 ) on farmland or just a once-open bit of land where someone tinkered themselves into some stunningly magnificent park, for which they collect money to visit and for which I was always so grateful to pay, just to see those exotics and bizarre rare species of Rhododendrons which eccentrics would specialize in. These were once virtual Hobby Farms, now ranked as parks. And there are more than one thinks.

I recall landscaping an estate in BC – 10 acres set in deep woods with 2,000 year old Douglas Fir stumps whose bodies had been felled in the original flurry of construction at the turn of the 20th Century, filled with a gassy pitch and crumbling peat-like deteriorated cores. One ravine near the home was particularly suited for Rhodies – deep shade with some dappled sunlight. I resolved to fill it with my own brand of a similar park but, naturally, budget concerns worried me immensely.

I consulted my usual nursery and had a line on some great buys of very small starter rhodies – with, naturally, a very restricted base of species and color. It weighed upon me as I drove the back roads of Langley and Surrey, BC, which was where my project was located.

While driving, I happened across a home – just caught by a glance out to the right of my window – where it appeared someone had themselves what looked like their own private nursery. I was curious and always looking for deals and I knew how cash spoke to growers – always subject to the whims of their small market of buyers. I braked, reversed and drove into the drive way.

As I drove in, I noticed a dilapidated older car parked, its door open and some cigarette smoke wafting from the driver’s seat. Walking up the small rise, I also noticed that as far as I could see, the entire nursery was of Rhododendrons. It stretched at least 100 feet to my left and was a good 20 rows deep of large – some huge – rhodies. This was a gold mine of specimens – gigantic and mature plants – and a variety to literally die for. I was nearly shaking after beholding all this because I really knew what I had found. (Hey, you had to be there.) 🙂

The man in the car was very old now – 77 – a Russian immigrant whose wife was cooking inside and whose relaxation and privacy included this car to a degree I speculate was pretty intense. He coughed and looked up as I stood outside the door of his smoking chamber and gave a big smile. He was delighted to have company. It made a great start to a long and wonderful relationship. How no one had found this man is still beyond me to this day. I am positive he never would have sold Plant One had I not stopped by – or some other young and enterprising landscaper – there is that.

He had a hothouse where he was cultivating starts – some from seed – and always had. He just loved Rhododendrons. As we ambled around the stock, his 6 foot 6 inch frame would bend over at a particular plant and I would get its very history. He knew each plant like children. It put a near religious reverence to the entire operation, I swear. Some of the newer Rhodies were 3 feet tall, lined up before being separated later to accommodate for their later growth. Meanwhile, some of the others were a true 8 feet tall – worth thousands of dollars each and too large even for me to relocate. I was boggled beyond belief.

He asked if I wanted to buy some of them, getting the hint when I told him I was a landscaper. Naturally, I said yes and awaited his pricing with some trepidation. “Which ones do you want?” he asked. When I showed him a 5 foot high plant in full bloom which any nursery would charge a full $400-500 for, he looked at me, squinted in the sunlight and said:

“What would you say if I wanted $25?” 😉

I laughed and said I would take it, of course. “Well, how many do you want?” was his next question. He then ran off the list, pointing to each plant and never going above 50 bucks for any plants – even the most extravagant and large. It became almost embarrassing and there was no way I was going to rip him off after the efforts he had put in. I gave him a figure that doubled or tripled what he had asked and he started blinking, counting up the dough. I also said I would begin with 100 plants. There was no way I was leaving that field without buying as many as I could.

He was delighted, but I was not done. I wanted to know why he wanted to sell them at such discounts after all the love he had labored over to get them started. I asked him point blank. He was so easy to talk with, it was crazy. We had definitely hit it off.

“Well, I am dying. I never wanted to make some big amount of money off these plants. There was a landscaper I used to sell 3-4 to now and then and it would be some cash for us. I spent a lifetime logging and doing the garden here just became a lot more of a hobby than I thought it would. We had all this land and it’s great land – perfect for Rhodies. If I could make sure the Missus has a few things before I go, I would be real happy. Heck, the land here is worth enough to retire on if we sold it. The Rhodies are just sort of gravy.”

He had a heart condition which gave him about a year to live. He had found out earlier that very week, it turns out. It’s funny how events gravitate towards one another in life. He looked at me with some real big eyes, smiled and knocked me over:

“I was hoping you would come by,” he said.

I felt overwhelmed by events on this boring Wednesday afternoon as I made my way through another torridly-paced business day, lit up on vanity, career concerns and selfish business worries like a junky. Then this tall Russian elderly drink of water delivered that line which I have never forgotten. Among my life’s most miraculous events, I always reflect on this moment as one of those. The suddenness and raw clarity of a synchronicity of need and of something more – maybe just Love itself – made its way deeply into my heart like a bolt of lightning.

A few tears streamed down my face as I drove home that day, in a bizarre mix of gratitude, joy, and simple awe at the outrageous unthinking compliance of Fortune itself. Oh – and I made me a great friend. That should be assumed.

Well, he lived for another two years. I was young and just starting out in landscaping but I had enough dust to provide his grateful hands with about $6,000 in purchases and – Man! – did I ever make out, too. I also bought one of those 8 footers. It took all day for 3 guys to transplant it at the new spread. The timing was stunningly apt – it had just begun blooming and, once planted, was in full flower when their homeowners – a local builder – had their house-warming party. Their gratitude for my work was pretty much off the charts and I won an award for the job – my first ever.

Today, that plant might fetch the entirety of what I paid for all 300 plants I got from Vladimir.

I did not plan to write all that but it’s one of those “Rhodie stories” I have that seemed natural to share. After all, one good turn deserves another, doesn’t it?

Running A Landscape Business – Part 1

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Finally, I arrive at the nuts and bolts in my semi-autobiographical rendition of a life in the landscaping business. I apologize for taking such a long break in posting, but – hey – it’s my blog and I’ll blog if I want to.  😉

Another miscreant – John Bufton – and I were working for the largest maintenance business in Vancouver, BC in 1978 – now known as David Hunter Garden Centers. While together, we had long talks about the world around us and, among other thoughts, we found a mutual interest in trying to go off alone in a business. John, in fact, already had a few “side jobs” where he spent his “off days”, working his butt off for a couple of wealthy contacts, courtesy of his Mother who was in Real Estate. As we spoke, we realized we brought mutual strengths to the idea – John with a local connection and existing contracts and a deep history of lawn and garden maintenance, and me, with abundant experience in estimating and installing landscape construction projects. We made a business plan of sorts – believing a Spring start and the abundant work involving “power-raking” – the removal of thatch and moss built up through the cool, damp Winters of the Great Northwest – which was highly profitable – could supply our financing. From that, we would attempt to form a “base”, a ‘bread and butter’ aspect of the business in the form of maintenance contracts for homes throughout the city.

John’s mother co-signed for a loan to purchase a beater pickup truck, we invested our pay into purchasing hand-outs, prime for Spring labor, which we would distribute door-to-door to likely customers. In February we began, quitting at Hunter and venturing out on our own, dazed but explosively hopeful. Our handouts were a complete success – actually far beyond what we had imagined. In fact, John began complaining about the radical numbers of calls. Nevertheless, it was what we had asked for and so commenced a fairly robust season. After one day we were able to buy our very own weedeater and in ensuing days, we purchased all the maintenance machinery and tools we would need for the entire year. After a week, we were on our way! We were bursting at the seams, happy, tired and full of optimism.

It wasn’t long until we had some landscaping to look at. Over the course of the first month of business, we acquired a $28,000 contract to upgrade a series of apartments managed by one of our newly-acquired maintenance contracts. It required designing and a small hand-drawn idea of our intentions relative to the places and was impressive enough to please the client. Suddenly, we were a 2 crew operation and we purchased yet another beater truck. We entered the Federal and Provincial Era, where we began complying with the standards of employment in general, submitting taxes and deducting them from wages. Within 3 months, we had become “Bona Fide”. It was a heady period, to say the least.

We pretty much did everything right and we certainly could not be faulted for effort. We worked constantly. However, in this success, we encountered the beginnings of our eventual dissolution. The landscaping end of the business had encountered a subdivision of one acre lots during the period of serious economic expansion, house-flipping and people making humongous money as house prices skyrocketed locally. Fortunes were being made and lost over the housing bubble of the late 70’s in British Columbia and we experienced our first loss. Someone decided not to pay – or actually, could not pay. And this after an incredibly busy season. The timing was dreadful inasmuch as we had plowed our money into the business itself. Suddenly, the landscaping end of things realized its inherent risks, certainly compared to lawn and garden maintenance, which was sufficient unto itself, easily done and very predictable.

We found ourselves at odds over directions and John – who had 3 beautiful baby boys – was feeling pressure not only from his wife and family but from himself over realizing the inherent risks in the trade of landscaping. We became poor again, quickly enough, and John expressed his willingness to separate. Aside from it being a literal study in what can go wrong in business, it was somewhat heart-breaking. It felt sloppy and depressing, and this after a year where we were as busy as anyone in the entire town.

I spent most of that Winter in a funk. It was difficult resigning myself to going back to work for someone else, but it seemed the only way to survive. I felt alone and despairing. And then help came from a surprising source.

I got an offer from someone who wanted to help some small business as a silent partner. Our efforts had not gone unnoticed and he lived in the neighborhood of one acre homes which I had had such a difficult time leaving, since literally everyone there hired me as they moved in. He called a mutual friend who highly recommended me as someone who he might be interested in investing in. It was serendipitous, strange and relieving. As a former IRS (Canada Version) agent and an accountant, he was set up to be the most incredibly apt person to help I could have found. As we spoke, I suddenly understood he was dead serious. My heart was a’ flutter.

So with Spring approaching and a couple of small projects underway, John went onward to his life’s work without me. In a year, so incredibly much had happened no one had time to remind ourselves of the actual events – a miasma of happenings complete with small stories, a lot of success, some tragedies and an amazingly eventful series of events.

Ray soon showed up at my place with a brand new 1980, dual wheel 1 Ton Ford truck with a flatbed which raised and lowered by electric motor. It was a dream machine, the envy of the city dump! (Let it be known here and now that the girls liked it too!). Clean and sleek, it could handle the landscaping chores in ways which shot our productivity through the roof.

We moved back into the famous one acre lot territory, this time taking no prisoners and designing stuff like mad. We also acquired a couple of small commercial contracts which I had estimated for and with an eye towards moving towards a much larger commercial side of the business. There was big money there. Little did we realize we were attracting attention from larger fish. Well, we worked hard and met some amazing people.

(We did a project for Leslie Nielson’s older brother, redoing his entire back yard and fence, patio and raised bed planters. This was the pre-Airplane, pre- Detective Frank Dubbin Leslie Nielsen, whose other brother at that time was the head of the New Democratic party in the national capital – a major political player. I only name drop like this to mention that each man – who we met – was an absolute gas of a person – just nice as could be and warmly appreciative of our efforts.)

It became this sort of highlight of the season because the entire year was composed of such small successes and this project was a minor one financially but not without major fun. It was a great year and we did about $384,000 in total volume, in 1980 dollars. Extrapolated to now, that’s about $750,000. People were noticing and our reputation had become excellent.

Winter in Vancouver is a fairly bizarre thing. While I spent later years not missing one day of week day work, generally we shut down the landscaping during December to mid February. Say 2-3 months. It is actually welcomed by owners and planners as it gives a period to take a breath and assess directions and processes. Oh yeah – and have a beer.

During this down period, I got approached by another interested party who had money, bulldozers, back hoes and whose home I had worked on laboriously dynamiting trees, scraping 10 acres of land and then decorating it up in my own trademark ways. Mario – an Italian with toys and attitude – approached both Ray and I with a deal: Bid on the largest work in the Province and he would help finance the delayed payment schedules, provide machinery for the work and actually attend work every day like a working partner. Inasmuch as he was a home builder and a successful one, his record was pretty impeccable for profits. To Ray and I, it was a near no-brainer. Onward and upwards. So we two became 3. The only caveat was that we would need projects to work on, lol. If I could supply a contract, Mario would join. Suddenly my onus became clear. I had to acquire contracts.

For the next 45 days, I spent every waking hour in front of blueprints, estimating them. I would visit literally every major construction company in Vancouver and surrounding towns, asking to be put on their bid lists and begging for blueprints from which to draw and submit estimates. Finally, I got a call.

I visited this business – a $20 Million a year construction firm who was looking at new landscaping companies because of some unfortunate events with others. My price interested them but my approach interested them more. They allowed me to explain my history, assessed my principle partners and awarded us an $84,000 contract to begin in a few weeks. I drew up a contract, showed it to Ray and Mario and suddenly we were a viable business. We began the contract the day we could start, with Mario unloading his bulldozer and us pushing dirt which was partially covered in snow. For the next 60 days, no one took a day off and we put in 12 hours per day whereupon we finished to an immensely-pleased client. We hired one other person and no more, lol. We did it all.

In the meantime, I was still fielding calls and bidding projects. We were awarded another one – this one far larger – which I failed to even look at. In fact, the day we were to begin, as we were toting our equipment jobwards, I suddenly realized – along with my partners – that I hadn’t the remotest idea where it was! Both the other guys were shocked – I had been so thorough with the other ones. I became nervous, lol, as we approached the place. But as we arrived, the project supervisor came out and introduced himself. Word of our competence had spread and he was asking if we felt we could somehow manage to take on some extra work, prior to the landscaping.

“Duh”, was my reply. 😉

He wanted us to build retaining walls out of pressure treated 6″ x 6″‘s, at 5 different locations on the site, each of them over 100′ long. Each location required 3 walls of 3’ high apiece. It was an enormous undertaking. He asked for a price and we huddled. Between the 3 of us, we came up with a figure and he gave the go ahead after a brief call to his office. Suddenly, we had 3 months of very profitable work ahead of us. It was a dream.

 

Brick Pavers As A Product and Installation Issues

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“Pavers”, in the sense we refer to here are compressed concrete bricks, perfectly formed to interlock initmately, forming a non-moveable structurally road strength surface. The “compression” comes from the manufacturing process, where the paver forms are filled, then shaken to void out air holes and to better distribute the cement itself. They end up being somewhere in the vicinity of 8,500 PSI (pounds per square inch). To get an idea of how hard that is, your standard concrete walkway downtown is about 4,500 PSI. A patio out back in your yard will usually be in the vicinity of 3,500 PSI. Thus, these are harder than ‘normal’ cement products. They are being used in many newer applications, including city streets. 5 million square feet of the Honk Kong Airport’s entire runway and general tarmac is composed of these little beggars, as well.

The concern in Hong Kong dealt with the massive rains of the Monsoon Season and the tendency to flood. Brick pavers offered a drainage solution which intrigued the planners, who still produced plans containing ample numbers of catch basins to conduct water throughout the airport’s tarmac. Later tests revealed the incredible infiltration of water between the actual cracks of the pavers themselves, producing very nearly zero work for the planned catchments.

Pavers, simply by their segmented nature, allow water to pass directly down between one another, as this picture shows in more detail.

(enlarge any picture by left clicking)

Another recommendation they carry with them is the fact that they are somewhat flexible. In this, I refer to the component factor: it takes a lot of brick pavers to contribute to a driveway. Whereas a cement driveway will develop cracks atop shifting bases, or can collect water underneath and thus heave, where the concrete structure will crack and split and then deteriorate further with time, pavers will heave just like the cement, but will not have some monolithic break. They will ride the heave and stay intact. Thus freezing and cracking may well be the least of worries. The actual fact is, those who prepare the base are the stars of this particular show. Proper preparation below any surface yields much less trouble, later.

PREPARATION

Under any surface, cement, asphalt, or brick pavers there needs to be a compacted base consisting of some sort of compactable material. Typically a mix of small rocks and “fines” from the same rock created at quarries do the trick. The fines do what we indicated above with the forming of pavers in the mold: they fill in totally and thus ensure, upon being squished with some titanic and compressing machine, that the subbase is going absolutely nowhere. When covered, there should be no voids to collect water where freezing can affect the ultimate size and cause breaks or heaving. A compacted base would also solve a lot of cement problems regarding breakage and deterioration but it seems not all contractors take the time for this hard and time-comsuming work.

Depending on the soils underneath, the base material should be at least 6 inches thick for drivweways and 4 inches for patios and walkways. In the absence of base material, or Class II Base as we call it, washed sand can actually be used as a base material.

In any event, for truly muddy or expansive type soils, one should overexcavate appropriately and add this completely new material. I once had a project, in Vancouver, B.C. where we were scheduled to install pavers aside a parking garage. The only problem was, there was this hole from earlier excavations about 12 feet deep and some 50 feet wide and it was full of water. This was exactly where the pavers were supposed to go.

I backed a line of trucks holding washed sand up and dumped them, pushing them in, finally, with my trusty Bobcat, bit by bit, allowing the water to escape from the rear of the hole, and succeeded in filling the hole in a day. Two days later, we were compacting and constructing and, 5 days later, we had made ourselves a brick fire lane, 20 feet wide, coursing over this former hole. It was actually sort of amazing, really, but I swear, that drive is at nearly the same level it was when we constructed it, today, some 22 years later. Here’s Nature’s bottom line: Nothing compacts like water!

SAND LAYER

For pavers, an extra step is typical at the end of the compaction drama: a one inch layer of sand is put in place at the exact level one desires the pavers to go. Eventually, this sand bed will allow a bit of movement as the pavers get compacted into place and grouted with yet more, and possibly other decorative, color coordinated, sand. What this achieves is some allowance for error, as well. Artists with a plate compactor can literally change a grade where necessary, by adding water and worrying a hump into submission by whacking it until it conforms. While this sounds inexact, the best operators can achieve a perfect grade. It’s what they are paid to do.

LAYING THE BRICK PAVERS

The job is almost done. I am being serious. There is some darn hard work, toting pavers over for placement and all, but establishing the base is always the big achievement. By the time your sand is screeded (levelled into place), laying the pavers is good old brainless work, in most cases. I advocate hiring the high school student for this phase, lol. (You know that saying, “Hire the high school student….while they still know everything?” oops, sorry, honey). I could not resist, sorry……now, where were we?

Establishing a laying pattern is mental. There are any numbers of patterns available, from Herringbone ones to Running Bond patterns and some extoic ones as well. Just the same, laying them becomes easier once the pattern is established and repitition becomes the norm. At this stage one fills in the blank area with bricks.

FINISHING

Finishing involves a few things: edges and retaining systems, grouting the pavers with sand and the final compaction. There is also sealing which I will also address elsewhere.

Edges and restraining: If curved, the edges of any paver edifice will require cutting. Many people use the “guillotine” method of pressing two sharp edges manually, thus cleaving the brick. I have seen projects done this way which worked well. Nevertheless, I always advocate cutting all pavers with a brick saw, using a diamond blade and water, thus getting a crystal clean cut at exactly the edge one desires. It just looks more professional, to me. Once in place, I restrain my bricks with either plastic or aluminum edging, complete with holes for knocking down some nice 8-10″ spikes and holding it tightly in place. The edges of all component structures are always the weak point, but with edge restraints, one can withstand tires and accidents alot better.

Grouting with sand: This implies spreading a layer of sand over the entire paver area, then sweeping and watering the sand into place inside the cracks of the pavers themselves. One also cleans when finishing with water. I like to compact the pavers one final time with a thin coat of sand over the bricks. The sand “lubricates” the passage of the compactor and the compaction process shakes the sand into those cracks. Then is when I typically wash, finishing the grout process and the project itself.

Essentially, that’s it. One can expect a lifetime’s worth of satisfaction from this stuff. Indeed, one may well expect generations to enjoy the fruits of this labor. Modern bricks are replacing city streets in many cities, especially those who experience rain problems, like Seattle, Portland or Vancouver, B.C. They add wonderfully to the resale value of a home, even aside from looking as good as anything out there can look. I will deal with the more artistic values of brick pavers elsewhere, but the color combinations, laying patterns and bricks themselves are mind boggling in their diversity and possibilities. They are a huge step forward in landscape technology and offer yet another wondrous and durable possibility for outdoor pleasure.