We had just finished smothering the garden bed in front of a client’s home as it was quickly becoming too labor-intensive to manage. The 8’x13’ space was densely populated with natives and weeds a like. There were thick masses of echinacea, begonias, and nutsedge that then vanished into oblivion after a few months of solarization. We repotted the natives because we were not sure what we were doing next. What we did know is that the client wanted the space to look nice, but needed the space to be more maintenance -free and accessible. The client suggested that she would like to somehow incorporate the golden ratio in her landscape design, and that’s when the idea came to be.
I have never constructed an herb spiral before, but here I was suggesting that it would be the solution to all of her problems. On paper, the herb spiral would be aesthetically pleasing, require less maintenance than in-ground plantings of the same dimensions and abide by the golden ratio in the layout of its footprint. The client quickly fell in love with the idea upon viewing images on the internet of herb spirals that looked similar to what I was trying to achieve. I even knew how and with what I was going to build it.
I was envisioning giant, irregularly-shaped stones as the base layer in order to make this feature a statement piece in the garden. The acquisition of these stones for a reasonable price was difficult, but we managed. These stones, considered Class II size, ranging from 200 lbs to 700 lbs, were indeed giant and irregularly-shaped. Needless to say, they were quite difficult to move. They came from my local quarry at a price of $30/ton. I thought this was a steal, but quickly realized how much additional work would be necessary acquiring these stones compared to pre-selected and palletized stone at a local landscape supply distributor charged at a premium.
I was not allowed to touch any of these stones at the quarry for liability reasons. As you can imagine, quarries have strict regulations in place to minimize accidents. Large equipment was needed to scoop up these stones and drop them in my trailer. The issue with that was that I could not cherry-pick my stones, and many of the Class II stones were way too large for this application, with those stone in the upper part of this Class II size range weighing 500-700 pounds each. My load and the sizes of the stones I received was completely in the hands of the equipment operator. I needed 2 tons of stone. I could have received 4 500 lbs stones… and then what would I have done with those? Luckily that did not happen. With advanced notice and accommodation, the site manager met me at the stone pile and marked off a section of the pile that included only small stones. The operator then loaded me up with the 2 tons of stone containing exactly what I needed, minus 1 400 lbs rock that found a place at the client’s residence just outside of the herb spiral. Luckily this client loved this stone and wanted it elsewhere on the project.
Once the stones were on-site, it took my colleague and I a full day to maneuver the stones to form the base layer. After the better part of 8 hours each struggling to move these stones in place in the 95 F degree heat, we called it quits, only to realize that we needed a few more large stones. The next day I was able to get what I needed from a different quarry. These stones were considered Class I stones, mostly smaller in size. Luckily, I received a few of the larger stones in this size range along with smaller ones for the top layer of the herb spiral. What felt like the hard part was now over.
To my surprise, acquiring the stones was not the hard part. The hard part was orienting these stones in a way that looked natural and with the approval of the client. After we left the first day, the positioning looked great and we were confident that the rest of the project would go smoothly. When we added the second round of large stones, the presentation quickly shifted into something haphazard. Stones were stacked oddly because I was trying to achieve a certain height. The client stated that she didn’t like whatever it was that we did on the second day. Even my colleague knew something was off later that second day. A few days later in the scorching heat we figured out that it was the height I was trying to achieve that was throwing us off. It was impossible to get the height I wanted with the stones we had without stacking them. I was constructing it to be accessible for me, a 6’3” man, where as my client was just under 5’. We altered it to be more accessible to her and that fixed the aesthetic issues to the client’s satisfaction.
We aren’t finished yet. We have added the soil to the interior of the herb spiral and allowed it to settle. When the weather cools off, we are to begin planting and mulching. We were all excited to see the outcome of this project. Despite the hiccups, I consider this project to be a great success. This has been an incredible learning experience. I can not wait to construct the next one!