We have been impressed by the use of concrete blocks in some of your raised beds being used to contain rollers. We need to do some grade work on the west side of our house and are considering using retaining wall block to create a long raised bed along the house and use the block cores for rollers and other small plants. We like the wider webbing for better points to kneel on while working in the beds and the larger cores for more planting space. A couple questions if anyone has experience with this:

We have very dry winters but cold with the soil freezing solid better than four feet deep. Really don't want the block cores to become swimming pools in the spring when the deep soil is frozen but the top couple feet are thawed. If the lower cores are filled with coarse gravel and set on a base of sharp fill, but not below the frost line, would these drain or just accumulate ice between the gravel and still prevent drainage?

Any other obvious problems?

Thanks!

I put some potted semps in the attached pictures to keep it relevant.

Welcome to the site!

Geographically where is your approx location( you can put it in your profile)

@valleylynn

crawgarden said:Welcome to the site!

Geographically where is your approx location( you can put it in your profile)

@valleylynn

Thanks for the welcome! I will check how to add my location. Turns out we are not too far from you, a bit to your southwest in Siouxland zone 4b.

My wife used to be a assistant dean of students at a college in Storm Lake, once upon a time.

My mother lived there at one time. BV is a nice campus.

Hi Westfork, welcome to (NGA), glad you found your way here.
Two-tone colored blocks are sure interesting, I've never seen that kind before.
To answer your question about the freezing problem, I have never lived in an area that the ground would freeze that deep. However, my raised beds have been down to 10° above zero a number of times. The soil did freeze from top to bottom, but never filled with water once the rain came. I just made sure that the soil I put into the blocks was fast draining and then I used a very thick layer of chicken grit or clean quarter minus that was sharp.

Thanks for the reply Lynn. Yes, I thought these tiger striped blocks looked interesting and might blend in better than gray concrete. I like the larger cores for planting too.
We usually have very dry winters here, but March and April snows melting or rain can drown out some plants when the surface foot or two has thawed but the soil beneath that is frozen solid allowing no drainage. Not sure if all the spaces in the gravel would freeze solid with ice or not. Hoping that it would not be cold enough to flash freeze large voids when water may be moving. Spilling a cat's water bowl on the concrete on a cold winter's day creates an immediate lump of ice instead of spreading out. Our biggest challenge is that we usually have no snow cover for insulation, and that is hard on plants drying out in the intense winter sun when it is 20 or 30 below zero with the soil frozen 5 feet down.
I enjoy learning from this forum.

It is interesting how Sioux Quartzite chicken grit (Cherry Stone) is used by so many on this forum around their semps. It is everywhere around here as the outcroppings occur just north of us near Sioux Falls. The seven or so exposed sites stand tall over the landscape as they were the only areas hard enough to resist the glaciers. It was used for cobblestones for a while, lots of buildings are constructed of it, and many of our roads are pink since it is used in their construction. Some of the glacial erratics deposited around our fields can be huge. We do a lot of landscaping with it and can't resist hauling home orphaned reject stones from the quarry when we are up that way.

Wow! Beautiful stones!

Nice photos and info, Westfork!

webesemps said: Nice photos and info, Westfork!

Thanks. I have always loved Sioux Quartzite as it as close to indestructible as you can get. We have even gotten batches of 140 year old Sioux Quartzite road setts to use in landscaping. Some from the old Jobber's Canyon area that was ripped up in Omaha and some from Lake Street in Minneapolis. They made poor roads as the quartzite doesn't break down and get rough like granite, but will stay slick forever. One of these pictures is of probably the last remaining Sioux Quartzite section of street in the Jobbers' Canyon area of Omaha. Also old houses and stores around here were built from it. Very tough to work with as it is incredibly hard, it is used instead of diamond in some applications for industrial grinding and abrasives. One of these pictures is a load of tumbled quartzite stones in my truck used in mills to pulverize products, we plan to make a cobblestone landscape area with them.

It's rather difficult to find decent looking top dressing. That is, unless you crush it yourself.

Looks like it works well, and a nice neutral color too.

Unfortunately, you have to spend an hour crushing it with a sledge hammer. I used to use very course sand, but it got finer and finer.

Evan, I love your homemade crushed rock, But the days of crushing rock far behind me. Sure is pretty though.

Westfork, it was so very interesting to read the history of quartzite in your area, and the photos are a bonus.