Hi lilbud, You didn't say what type of stone you have. Is it Limestone or a mix of glacial boulders which can be anything and everything?

Here in wisconsin we have a wealth of stone(s) also ... although many farmers would argue my choice of words LOL.

There are many old barns around here made with fieldstone foundations and are still in good shape. From my amateur study I think the secret is using a "softer" mortar mix. Most off the shelf mortars today are a harder concrete mortar.

A softer mortar is made with the addition of more lime in the mix. A softer mortar is needed to take the "shock" of expansion and contraction of the stone(s). I could go into a lengthy discussion of the "modulus" of stone and concrete but let's just say softer is better when using a variety of stone(s).

What happens when the mortar is too hard is it will crack and fall away from the layered stone requiring more frequent patching. A soft(er) mix will stay in place much longer.

I live in the northern part of the lower peninsula of Michigan. I build a low retaining wall out of fieldstone last summer. So far it has held up over the winter, so I think it will be ok. My neighbor has a wall that's 3-4 feet tall with no mortar and smaller rocks and it's been there for about 6 years.

I don't think there's a problem with using mortar, but you could probably do it without if you didn't want to mess with the mortar. It does take some patience getting the rocks to fit together well if you don't use mortar, but I enjoyed the process. I think one of the keys is to get a pretty good selection of rocks before you start placing any. All of my rocks were hand picked from the farm field.

Here is a link that might be useful: Here's a picture of my wall.

Hi lilbud,

I'm usually on the Daylily, Upstate NY, and Winter Sowing forums. I checked this forum just out of curiosity since I've been doing work with dry-laid stone in my yard for a while. In fact, I was just outside laying another raised bed this morning. . . .

Anyhow, I hope you don't mind my two cents. I've had good success with dry-laid field stone for low (2-3 1/2') retaining walls and low raised beds. We had a mortared field stone retaining wall, done (poorly) by a previous owner of our property, which I redid with dry-laid stone last fall after it fell over into our yard. The mortar had just disintegrated. Our part of Upstate NY is laced with dry-laid stone walls on old farm properties, still standing after 100+ years. If you don't want to use mortar, dry-laid can stand the test of time and weather if you take the time to lay it well. I like the jigsaw-puzzle aspect of laying stone, myself. It's relaxing, and satisfying. And, I think it's a wonderful complement to most gardens - stone walls have lots of character.

Laurel

where would one find fieldstones for free in the south east of massachusetts

Jugglerguy! You're totally the one who inspired my little rock paths I posted earlier. Yours look much more professional, however--lovely.

I tried building an encircled, raised, dry-stacked garden bed out of fieldstone and ended up taking it down. It didn't go well for me. Good learning experience, though. ;P

Alina