You can walk all through the garden on pink limestone paths. Throughout our county here in South Dakota we have pink limestone. Hot Spring’s historical victorian buildings were built out of a pinkish sandstone. You can take a peak at our named “2009 Distinctive Destination” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. When we bought our house 18 years ago, I did not have a set plan for how my garden would look. I just knew I wanted a “secret garden” filled with flowers, fragrance and pink limestone paths. So, Ted and I set out to find and “mine” our pink pathways. We found places were we could dig up some flagstones. This was a job of hard work and patience. I don’t mind the hard work, but patience, I have to work on. Ted excels in both being fearless in the face of hard work, and he is patient. After finding our site, we had to carefully remove all the loose stone and any weight that sits on top of the potential flagstones. The stones are laid down in layers. When we found a good layer we used a sharp crow bar or shovel edge and slowly, carefully pried and lifted the top layer. The goal was to get as large a flagstone as possible before it would break. Then we lifted the stone onto the pickup. Our largest flagstone is 3 feet by 7 feet and about 2” thick. While Ted and I were pondering how we would ever get such a large, heavy stone onto the pickup, friends came by and helped us load the stone. I, the inpatient one had been ready to break it to fit. It took 6 men to unload the stone and place it in the carefully leveled spot where it has remained for years. If you go through my past posts you will see many examples of our pathways. As I removed more and more lawn and planted gardens, Ted added arbors and structures. When I would say, “Ted, you know what we need?” he would say “One more load!” and so off we would go. What a workout!
I worked with passion and determination to lay the pathways. Notice the rocks that line the back wall. I fancied they looked like fish.
