Sonoma County Master Gardeners Helping Sonoma Gardeners

reviewed by Sonoma County Master Gardener Steven Hightower

Hardscape is an important part of landscape design, and while the term includes everything from concrete patios to brick walkways to packed gravel, natural stone is perhaps the highest embodiment of hardscape in the garden. Stone by Design by stonemason Lew French is a small book, lavishly illustrated with photographs by Alison Shaw, that is highly inspirational in the use of stone and rock in the landscape. Not generally a how-to book, with techniques for moving stones or building dry-laid walls (just a short chapter on splitting stone), it is a tome to provide ideas and provoke thought as to how to better and more interestingly incorporate natural stone into landscape design.

There are flagged patios, high walls combining large vertical granite stones with small fieldstones, low traditional dry-laid walls, outdoor fireplaces and firepits, fountains and waterfalls and rock paths and walkways—all shown integrated into the landscape of shrubs, flowers trees and grasses, and combined other natural elements such as  branch pergolas, twig fences and antique wooden garden-wall doors. 

Of great importance and interest is the use of large natural stones as pure design elements in the garden. Rocks for rocks’ sake alone: enormous granite fingers; limestone posts;  large half-buried mossy fieldstones; a stacked-slab cairn or a free-standing three-stone arch; and sculptural stone groupings. These singular massive elements create focal points for the garden which make them “pop” with unusual interest, and set them apart from the ordinary.

If you have no affinity for rocks in the garden, then give this one a pass, but if any of these elements tweaks your interest, then many solid ideas will come from perusing this edition.