Stone & Wood Structures in Central Massachusetts

The features that make an outdoor space somewhere people actually sit are usually the vertical ones. A patio on its own is a surface; a patio with a seat wall around one side, a fire pit at the far end and stone steps down to the lawn is a room. In a climate where the outdoor season runs roughly from April to November, a fire pit or a covered structure is what stretches the useful end of that season by a month at each end.

Greener Grass Landscaping builds the stone and timber features that finish a landscape: fire pits in block or natural stone, seat and knee walls, stone steps set into a slope, pillars and entry columns, raised planters, pergolas and arbors, and the decorative structures the logo has carried since day one. Stone work is built on the same footings and drainage principles as the retaining walls — a fire pit or a set of steps that heaves in its first winter is a fire pit that was built on the wrong base.

How feature work is built

1. 1

   Place it where it works

   Sun, prevailing wind, sightlines from the house, distance from the structure and how people will move around it — decided before anything is dug.

2. 2

   Footing and base

   Compacted base for stone features, and properly set posts for timber structures. New England frost does not negotiate with a shallow footing.

3. 3

   Build in material that suits the house

   Natural stone, segmental block or cedar and pressure-treated timber, matched to the hardscape already on the property.

4. 4

   Blend it into the landscape

   Grading, planting beds and mulch around the new feature so it reads as part of the yard rather than an object placed in it.