Stone River is a project by award wining landscape architect and stonemason, Jon Piasecki. Jon Piasecki is a graduate of Harvard University (with a Masters in Landscape Architecture in 1995), and Cornell University (with a B.S. in forest ecology in 1989). In 2004, he received the Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize awarded by the American Academy in Rome, and was in residence at the Academy in 2005. For this project Jon was commissioned by prominent landscape architect Michael

A few months back I wrote a post ‘Stone Chairs. Some ancient some not so ancient…Yet….’ in which I mentioned that one of my favorite things to build are stone seats. Well here is a stone seating area I have just completed and the process I used to create it. So recently a lady in down in Co. Kildare asked me if I could transform this old area of her garden into one of my stone seating areas, so of course I was only too happy to oblige. My delivery of stone. So when the old ma

You may be forgiven for thinking that this is a scene from a remake of the Flintstones by Tim Burton., but believe it or not, it is a real house in the rural settings of the Fafe mountains in northern Portugal. A Casa do Penedo, or “the House of Stone,” was built between four large boulders found on the site. The house was built in 1974 as a family’s rural retreat, but in recent years it has attracted the attention of tourists and architecture enthusiasts alike. Some come to 

A few months ago, I was asked fellow garden blogger Britt Conley from the Photo Garden Bee to partake in a photo meme. For the post I chose a photo I took at the Everglades Gardens set in the Blue Mountains at Leura, Australia. Picking this photo (below) made me want to write a post about the gardens themselves, so that is what I am going to do now. Everglades is one of Australia’s foremost heritage gardens. This treasure from the 1930s sits in twelve and a half acres of Euro

One of my favourite things to build is stone seats. There is something very special about sitting in a stone seat, it feels very grand, almost throne like. When building stone seats, a portion of my time is spent sitting, making sure that they are comfortable and positioned right. I must admit I have on occasion sat there wondering ‘will this seat still be here in a few hundred years. Will archaeologists be examining it to try and discover what kind of ceremonial uses it once

When I first started working with stone back in my late teens, I quickly developed a passion for it. All of a sudden I started noticing stonework a lot more, every time I would see a stone wall or an old castle I would stop and take a moment to examine how it was built and image the work that went into building it. As a mason you definitely do appreciate quality stonework at a different level, as you have a pretty good idea at the amount of work that went into it. You also ha

Stepping stones are a great way to create a path through your lawn without being too dominant. They can also help draw your eye down through the garden. Once you are happy with how it looks, walk across them to make sure the spacing of the stones is comfortable to walk. When you are satisfied, using a spade, cut around the edge of the first stone. Now move the stone to the side and remove the grass sod you have just cut out. Remove some of the soil if necessary, as the depth