Bluestone Stoop and Retaining Wall in Laurel
This summer, Lauren’s Garden Service received a request for a Bay friendly landscape and hardscaping around the front of their house. Lauren worked closely with the clients to develop a design that worked for their location and wish list. Our crew installed a new retaining wall, covered the existing walkway and stoop with bluestone, and installed a new native foundation landscape, 2 trees and small meadow garden.
We regraded the area, removed the old landscape stone, added lots of great compost and then planted the native plants.
We installed drainage behind the wall and coming through the wall to insure proper drainage. Improper drainage behind a retaining wall can compromise its structure and push the wall forward over time.
We started by laying out the base for the wall. We installed 6 inches of #57 stone to allow water to move below the wall.
Rumblestone wall blocks were used for the wall, and a topsoil/compost mix was used to backfill.
We resurfaced an old cement walkway with bluestone. An affordable upgrade!
Thermal cut bluestone was used to cover the existing cement pad and walkway. We were also able to make up for a discrepancy in grade where the cement pad was sinking. We backfilled under the pad and leveled the bluestone correctly as we laid. 
The front was planted with:
Inkberry holly- Ilex glabra
‘Little Henry’ sweetspire- Itea virginica
Fernspray falsecypress- Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Filicoides’
‘Autumn Brilliance’ serviceberry- Amelanchier canadensis
‘Purple beauty’ moss phlox- Phlox subulata
‘Emeral Pink’ Moss phlox- Phlox subulata
The native meadow was planted with:
Blue Stemmed Goldenrod – Solidago caesia
Praire Dropseed – Sporobolus heterolepsis
Threadleaf bluestar – Amsonia hubrechtii
Swamp Milkweed – Asclepias incarnata
Black eyed susan – Rudbeckia fulgida
