Saturday, March 16, 2013

Installing Andesitic Idaho Flagstone

Helleborus orientalis  First flowers in our garden!
     

I get as excited about spring flowers as the next enlightened, sensitive guy, but the thing that really tells me the season has started is when we get our first flagstone installation for the season.

This flagstone walkway I built for a  bungalow in the North End took me the better part of of last Monday to complete. There is truth in the term "hardscape".



The coolest thing about the walkway, other than the fact that our
client paid us instantly (thanks Beth!), is that all the stone comes from an easy drive's distance from Boise.

The downside of using this local stone is that while one side of the stone is generally pretty flat, the other side isn't. The stone also doesn't have a uniform thickness like Arizona sandstone, or some of the other rock quarried in Idaho. This makes installation of our local stone a little tricky.


Dreaming of flat bottomed pavers
Pavers and stones with even thickness are pretty straightforward to install. You have to...

- excavate the site
- install a course base and compact
- install a compacted & screed sand base

...and then you're ready to lay down your flagstone. If you've done a good job with your prep work, this last step can be completed pretty quickly.

Our local stone requires a couple more steps.

I use thicker pieces as a "keystone" within the patio to lock in thinner pieces of flagstone.
This requires you to excavate a bit of the sand you've worked so hard to compact.



I lock in the rocks by using a rock hammer to compact sand around and under the stones.



And then add another rock...




And then another 80 or so pieces until either I'm done or I can no longer hold on to my rock hammer.



I finish up each flagstone project by sweeping sand over the top of the rocks, filling in any voids to prevent stones from rocking.

Happy hammering.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Fruit Tree Pruning

People are indignant when I refuse to discuss fruit tree pruning in my basic tree care classes. Ornamental tree care couldn't be more different than pruning for fruit production so I rarely bring up the topic in the course of my presentations. These folks leave my classes disappointed and usually a little angry. Such is the life of a public speaker.

But I think any arborist should be at least a little uncomfortable uttering phrases like "reduction cuts" and (even worse) "heading cuts", so I'll start these instructions with the caveat: don't do this to shade trees. Really. Because I'll have to hunt you down if you do.

I keep my fruit tree pruning goals pretty simple:

1. Reduce the crown of the tree to short(ish) laterals that,
     a. are accessible from the ground or a short ladder and,
     b. reduce the possibility of branch failure under fruit load.

2. Keep the center of the tree open for good air circulation (and because it's hard to get fruit from the interior of the tree anyway).

3. Train the lateral branches to form an open lattice work to allow adequate light to the fruiting branches.

4. Remove dead, diseased and wounding crossing branches

Upright branches are vigorous in their growth, but laterals are better fruit producers.


Upright branches before pruning.





Half of an apple tree pruned to lateral branches.




Another shot of half the tree pruned.





First completed apple tree



Another completed apple tree at the same property




Another shot of the same tree.


Hey, did I happen to mention that if you do this to an ornamental tree I'll break your knee caps?

Next week I'm going to write about what happens when you do this to an ornamental (to the tree, not you) and the restorative pruning needed to, um, restore it.