Rocktober Festival 2010

Now in its 7th year you are sure of a lovely welcome at the Dry Stone Walling Thanksgiving Festival in Canada, the second weekend of October

I have attended all these events , thoroughly enjoyed myself , met wonderful people and learned a great deal. This year they are building a bridge , teaching courses with an array of international instructors, have several exhibits, providing fun for the children and there will be fascinating evening talks. Normally hundreds of interested members of the public attend to observe. Food is good too.

To learn more about the location, the dates and the programme contact

mcclaryharris@sympatico.ca

Sedum on top of a limestone wall

Dean McLellan sent this photo of the wall (limestone) at the front of his garden. The Sedum covering is growing luxuriantly into its second year. During the first year it was watered regularly, this year only occasionally. I have tried to do similar things in Scotland on other types of rock without success. I can only manage to get grass turf or heather turf to survive.

For more information go to

hlmasonry@hsfx.ca

The next entry is all about meeting up with enthusiasts for the craft in Canada.

New Members Day

Several years ago our branch of the DSWA realised that many new members only went to one training session ,joined the organisation but never came again to any event. To try to remedy this the committee decided to instigate an annual new members day . We invited each of the previous years crop of folk to a day of practice along with some of our more established wallers to help people to to get to know each other better. This Saturday we had our 5th one , this time at Camserney in Perthshire.

It was a great event with a fine section of wall built with some very large stones. Thanks are due to Bruce Forsyth, Stewart Hutt, Willie Shand, Grace Paterson, Eric Drummond, Janice McDonald, Rinaldo Kutteringand and Billy McCallum. In addition I have to add the thanks of us all to Archie Gibson for providing a good supply of rocks and fine food.

Next entry(7th September) shows how plants can be grown on top of a wall given the correct conditions.

Before and after in Glen Lyon

Recently I had to rebuild this wall in the Glen. The problem was that one side of the wall is much lower than the other with a drain below this point under the road. The old pipe had caved in and as a result the wall had tipped towards the field. During the winter with heavy snow falls the snow plough had forced the pile against the weakened wall and there had been a collapse. I relaced the pipe and rebuilt the wall.

Our branch New menbers day will feature in the next entry on 3rd September.

Simple and Efficient

This skillfully constructed double triangle garden feature was built by Findlay Haddow in his Edinburgh garden. Just goes to show that interesting landscaping does not have to be on a grand scale.

The next entry on 30th August shows a recent job I did in Glen Lyon, my favourite place in the world.

Coping on a steep slope

Back in my favourite place Glen Lyon in Scotland. I came across this section of wall built more than 100 years ago at Innerwick. This shows brilliantly one solution to coping on a steep slope. The wall is built roughly in courses with the final layers below cope height done in steps. The copes are then carefully placed to create more or less a smooth gradient. Clever stuff by some Victorian waller.

Next post is a shot of landscaping on a small scale in a garden.

Steps sent by Jason Hoffman

Jason and fellow waller Richard Love produce very attractive garden features around Scotland. For more examples of their work go to http://www.stoneinspired.com/

The next post shows how the Victorians dealt with the problem of coping on a steep slope.

Pit in Glen Lyon

This pit shown to me by Tom Beels is situated close to an ancient track from Glen Lyon over to Rannoch. It is about 1/2 a metre in each side of a box with sloping interiors . The centre contained assorted bottles down to about 30cms.

I am advised by a local archaeologist that it is most likely to be a horse feeding box built in the middle ages. Date very difficult to establish.

The next entry is a set of steps by Scottish waller Jason Hoffman.

Raised Bed

Three generations of the family had great fun one afternoon last weekend building this flower bed . The reddish sandstone sat well, the work went smootly including wheelbarrow rides for the wee people. Food and refreshments were lovely .What a great afternoon.
This part of the garden had to be ready for our 6th grandson Andrew's 1st birthday and it was, from a weedy start as you can see.

Sean's Pathway

Sean Donnelly sent me these photos of a set of steps he had made recently with Parnell stones in a garden leading down to a Lake. Throwing sticks to the client's sons dog Brody is agood way to test the reliability of this type of feature!