Blauuw Juniper Raft Planted on Limestone Slab
I’ve been working on this tree since 2013 and some of that work is documented here. Recently a friend helped me plant it on a natural limestone slab which I collected from a lakeshore. We decided to make some modifications to the slab, one thing lead to another, and it turned out to be a much larger project than I expected.
The photos below tell the story.
First, the final product. The soil surface was top dressed with shredded sphagnum.
First we drilled holes for wire ties. Initially, this was all we planned to do to the slab.
We then decided it would be a good idea to use a belt sander (with a grinding belt) to flatten some parts of the bottom so it would sit properly on a flat surface.
This stone has a very narrow section which I knew would be problemmatic when planting time came. The solution? Extend it using another piece of limestone. Here we are rough-fitting the best stone we could find lying around.
We used a tile saw to reduce the thickness of the new piece of limestone.
Two galvanized nails (heads removed) were used as rebar to support the new piece.
Concrete adhesive was used to permanently affix the two pieces together.
The final slab ready to accept the juniper forest. The new piece is pretty obvious, but it is in the back and will blend in better after the stone builds up some patina.
A muck retaining wall was used. The muck was an eyeballed mix of clay, akadama, sphagnum, peat, and water.
Still not done. After planting, we used a grinder to improve some of the edges, particularly the extending left side which is a focal point of the stone.