View Full Version : Bluestone - how to keep in place (cement?)
Williamstown
21st September 2007, 09:47 AM
I have a number of bluestone blocking seperating the garden from the lawn. I recently removed a few which had been cemented (or something) in place (previous owner). I'm relaying a few and just wondering what the best thing to hold them in place is. I was planning on breaking the old bonding cement off and then re cementing them. What type of cement do i need to use?
Secondly, in victorian gardens I have noticed everything seems to run straight in the garden with 90deg bends in hedge lines, etc. Is this a common victorian feature?
Bleedin Thumb
21st September 2007, 10:48 AM
The correct term is not cement - its mortar. Cement is the powder that you mix with sand and water to make mortar. What you need is a mortar mix of 5 parts brickies sand to 1 part cement. I'd probably add some black oxide so it doesn't stand out too much.
Straight lines IE a formal garden is not an exclusively Victorian garden theme. Victorian era gardens often were formal borrowing from the Picturesque movement (Capability Brown et al), however it was also the age of discovery and the Gardenesque style (Gertrude Jekyll et al)was evolving so that all the new exotic species could be displayed in a more naturalistic setting
Eventually in the late Victorian -early Edwardian the designs became very free flowing.
This concludes Garden Design 101 for today:)
Williamstown
21st September 2007, 10:55 AM
Thanks for the reply. I was looking for the word "mortar" but it had escaped my brain - thanks for that!