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Dry Stack Stone Planter

Yay! Spring is here and with it come many gardening and landscape plans. My husband and I actually made this dry stack stone planter last year. I’ve been saving it to share with you until now in case one of you is considering to DIY your own dry stack planter for the first time. Hopefully the tips I’ve figured out in the process will help with your project.

A huge advantage to building a dry stack stone planter, (or wall) is what it doesn’t require! For a mortared stone wall, we’d have to have footings buried 3 or 4 feet in the ground. We are in the Midwest and get cold winters. The frost goes into the ground that deep. If you don’t have footings deeper than the frost line, the mortared stone wall will crack and fall apart when the frost heaves it up. With a dry stack stone wall, footings are not needed. The stones have enough give and take that the frost shouldn’t cause them to topple.

Somewhere, years ago, I had seen an address marker hanging off an old pump handle and filed it away in my head for future reference. Our newly renovated home, (you can read all about the renovation projects of our new home HERE) seemed the right place to pull that creative entity out of the archives and put it to use. Our house is on a slope, which gives us the opportunity for a dry stack stone planter to look built in to the hill.

I found the old pump and ordered the address plaque. My husband had his metal working friend make the pump arm to stay extended out for the address plaque to hang from. He also welded a special flanged tube to connect to the concrete footing fitted to mount the pump on. If you have questions about those details, let me know, I’d be glad to get the answers for you.

Once the pump was mounted in the yard, I could visualize how the planter size and shape should look better. Using a landscape string, I determined the size and shape for the planter.

Here’s a tip… Be sure to view it from the road and not just right at the planter. It looks much larger close up, but from a distance, even a little distance like the road, it looks drastically smaller.

After the shape and size of the dry stack rock planter was decided, I dug out the grass for the first course of rocks.

Here’s a tip… If it’s been a while since it’s rained and the ground is super hard, water it a bit the day before you’re going to dig and it’ll be much easier. Just don’t overwater it if you have a lot of clay or you’ll have mud!

The first stone went in, and by the second or third stone, we realized it’s impossible to tell where ‘level’ is without an actual level. DUH! We both knew that but apparently forgot that part for a minute… (HERE is the first dry stack stone wall we built in our terraced front garden)

After re-grouping with a long straight board and level in hand. We started over.

Working with limestone like this isn’t too hard if you’re strong. Some of the pieces are quite heavy, so it was really helpful to have my husband do most of the heavy lifting. (This will make his day when reads that I said he did ‘most of the heavy lifting’!)

Here are some pretty basic and simple rules for dry stacking stones that I’ve figured out in the process:

  • Stagger Seams: Try to stagger the seams from the course of stones below it. This helps give the wall strength.
  • Board and Level: Use a level on a long straight board to get an over all idea of where level is. Have the board up on it’s side, to prevent it from bowing in the middle while trying to determine level.
  • Course Set-Back: Set the front of each course of stones slightly back from the ones below it. This will prevent the the top layer of stones from tipping forward over the stones below it.
  • Angle In: I like to slightly angle my stones so that they are tipping slightly back into the planter. This is very slight, but again gives them a little more strength once filled with backfill on the planter side.
  • Shims: Have plenty of scrap stone material and/or resin shims to use to adjust the stones slightly so there is no wobble. A wobble can lead to a wall collapse pretty easily.

After a few stones, we worked out a system… I’d tell him the size and shape of the stone we needed next. He’d bring over a few to choose from.

Pretty soon, we’d given names to the stones for reference, US states were popular… We knew what we meant, although to a passerby it might have been a bit strange. “How about the chubby state of Wisconsin?” or “I need a long narrow one, like that Tennessee number over there.”

After a long afternoon of work, we created a (fairly) level top with 4 courses of dry stack stones in the front and 2 courses of stones in the back.

Once the planter wall filled with top soil, I added the galvanized tank under the pump. (HERE is where you can read more about how I hastened a vintage finish on the galvanized tank.) I also painted the pump black.

Planting a mix of perennials and annuals gave it instant appeal while the perennials need to take time to settle in. Adding cedar mulch helps keep weeds at bay and keep the moisture in the soil.

The morning glories completely covered the trellis. There is a clematis in the planter on the trellis too, but they take a few years to really get established, so the instant huge morning glory show was fun!

We’re super happy with our dry stack stone planter. I’m itching to get out there and start planting again. It’ll be a few weeks before that’ll happen.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Please feel free to follow and share this blog with your friends, as well as on MeWe, Facebook, Pinterest, Flipboard, Bloglovin, YouTube and Instagram! I appreciate you reading along.

Here are some more gardening and landscape projects I’ve written about:

Vintage-Seahorse-Birdbath-Re-Do
Dry Stack Stone Planter
DIY Compost Bins
Potting Shed
Backyard Boat Pond
DIY Simple Deer Proofing
raised bed container gardening title
before  after front garden landscaping
How to Prune a Peegee Hydrangea
before  after circular garden
before and after front terraced garden
we had to cut down 13 trees
1-in the garden with water walls and cloches
Ingenious Tips to DIY this Planter
Turtles and Window Boxes
install this arbor and fence in one day
DIY Brick Edging
Transplanting Stella D'Oro Daylilies
spring-planter-arrangement
Garden & Landscape Inspiration
moving-a-screened-gazebo-onto-the-property
2 pergolas  garden update
Humidity Tray for Orchids
Creative-Planters
Window-Boxes-inside-a-2nd-story-porch
rooftop-garden
Creating-an-Oasis-with-a-Water-Fountain
snug-harbor-farm
Tips on Forcing Bulbs Indoors
The-Story-of-a-Blue-Jay-Title-Page
The-Beauty-of-Fences1
What-is-this?
How I re-did these Concrete Lions
Before and After Landscape and a DIY Pergola
DIY Window Well Installation
Growing Grass in a Vintage Scale
DIY Hanging Terrarium
Kid's Craft DIY Miniature Fairy Garden

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Welcome to Simple Decorating Tips! I’m Liz, the author, and I’m so glad you’re here!

My goal is to encourage you with DIY tips, techniques and tutorials so you feel empowered to join in the fun! Along with this DIY blog, I have a DIY shop, Frame and Frills!
Frame and Frills is in Wisconsin. I stock amazing DIY products! Fusion Mineral Paints, ReDesign Transfers, Decoupage, Waxes, loads of DIY Goodies, re-done Furniture and more! Even if you're not close to where the shop is in Wisconsin, good news... I ship nationwide, (USA) daily! Check out the link here and let's get your DIY on!
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Welcome to Simple Decorating Tips! I'm Liz, the author, and I'm so glad you're here! My goal is to encourage you with DIY tips, techniques and tutorials so you feel empowered to join in the fun! Along with this DIY blog, I have a DIY shop, Frame and Frills!
Frame and Frills is in Wisconsin. I stock amazing DIY products! Fusion Mineral Paints, ReDesign Transfers, Decoupage, Waxes, loads of DIY Goodies, re-done Furniture and more! Even if you're not close to where the shop is in Wisconsin, good news... I ship nationwide, (USA) daily! Check out the link here and let's get your DIY on!


Disclosure Policy: According to FTC guidelines, I want you to be aware that some of the content of this blog may be a source of income and therefore may be used to promote products, services, or other businesses. I will only choose to promote products/services/businesses that I feel will be beneficial to my readers. While I hope to generate a small profit for my time and effort to create this blog, I hold myself to the highest standard of integrity. I appreciate my readers, and make it my goal to deliver quality, honest material on this blog through each post. Thanks for reading along, Liz

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Sharing is great! Please feel free to share this blog with your friends, as well as on Facebook and Pinterest and Flipboard and Houzz and YouTube the more the merrier! I appreciate you stopping by. But please remember that all photos, images, text and content are owned by SimpleDecoratingTips.com. So anything you share, please be sure it always links back to my original post it came from. Please do not remove watermarks, crop or edit anything without written permission from me first.

Disclosure Policy: According to the FTC guidelines, I want you to be aware that this blog is a source of income and may occasionally incorporate endorsements or testimonials and shopping links. It is important to me to disclose this to you. The content of this blog is a source of income and therefore may be used to promote products, services, or other businesses. I will only choose to promote products/services/businesses that I feel will be beneficial to my readers. Products provided to me by my advertising partners for my review are given to me free of charge with no cost to myself. This does not ensure a positive review of the product in any way. While I hope to generate a small profit for my time and effort to create this blog, I hold myself to the highest standard of integrity. I appreciate my readers, and always make it my goal to deliver quality, honest material on this blog through each post. Thanks for reading along, Liz

Disclosure Policy According to Federal Trade Commission guidelines, I want you to be aware that this blog is a source of income and may occasionally incorporate endorsements or testimonials. It is important to me to disclose this to you. The content of this blog is a source of income and therefore may be used to promote products, services, or other businesses. I will only choose to promote products/services/businesses that I feel will be beneficial to my readers. Products provided to me by my advertising partners for my review are given to me free of charge with no cost to myself. This does not ensure a positive review of the product in any way. My truthful opinion will be what I state, no matter if I'm getting paid or not. Accuracy and truth are the priority for me on this blog's information, no matter if it's about a product or anything else. Not every product or service or store etc. may be mentioned in each and every post as an affiliate. While I hope to generate a small profit for my time and effort to create this blog, I hold myself to the highest standard of integrity. I appreciate my readers, and always make it my goal to deliver quality, honest material on this blog through each post.

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