Well, I actually completed it early last year, but thought it would be worth posting the results. I put a lot of thought into it. I drew sketches, planned color combinations, where the sun fell, how the rocks would look, flow, utility, etc. A lot of thought. But I had a deadline. I gave myself 9 months to complete it. Well, actually the home builder gave us a coupon to do landscaping and they gave us 9 months to redeem it, but I like deadlines.

Our house is a pretty plain, colonial style house. A perfect blank canvas.

The first step was to do a sketch. I worked with the steps that they had in place already and widened them a little at the base. I wanted three trees. The very front of the house gets almost no sun, so I had to keep that in mind with plant selection.

After I was happy with how it looked from the front, i did an overhead sketch. This would tell me how much room I had down to the inch. I sketched out the wall and the walkway. Then I could place the plants. I chose the plants that matched the width and height of the the plants in the sketch, taking into consideration the size they would be as they matured. This sketch would give me the ability to make an estimate on how much stone I would need. This would also give me the ability to estimate how much dirt and mulch I would need. As you can see, I made several estimates and came up with an average on the stones

I estimated 13 tons of stone. This included the walls and the walkways. I was right on with the walls. I had a few hundred pounds left over for a fire pit in the back. I have about a ton extra flagstone, which I’ll use in the back of the house. It will take three years for it to really fill out.

Finished… well. This part is finished. it will be an ongoing project.