shelljeep's Rock Garden

[shelljeep]

Living in south Louisiana means not many rocks to play on. I drive 6-8 hours to get to any decent 1:1 wheeling spots, no public places around to RC crawl either.
Over the past few weeks, I've gathered a few tons of rock from here and there on my travels, and bought some flagstone at a local yard also. I had built up as I went, but now that I've got a decent amount to work with, I wanted to redesign. Needed more room.
You can see from the pics that the piles were too close to the house, only the front side was really usable. I'll be stretching them apart this time.
I plan to have 3-4 different play areas, with room to step around the piles.
The piles will be grouped by region.
I have rock from eastern LA, (where we actually have some native rock), at a spot called Catahoula Recreation Area, a 1:1 and ATV park on priate land.
I have rock from East Texas, iron ore/sandstone, the type that makes up the ledges and rubble at Barnwell Mountain Rec Area in Gilmer, TX.
I will use the flagstone mostly in a comp area with steep climbs and more technical obstacles.
I will create a foundation out of broken concrete and cinder blocks so that I can get the most square footage from my rocks since these are hard to come by. The foundations shouldn't be noticeable once I'm done.
I plan to add an area for Clayton, OK rock, and AR as well. These may end up needing to be in adjacent gardens. The amount of stone from all these areas will increase as I go there to wheel my 1:1. All stone was gathered with landowner permission.
On to the pics-
These were taken yesterday, here is an overall shot of the old garden:

Here's a closeup of the comp area:

Here's a closeup of the Catahoula Rec rock area, I plan to duplicate alot of this in the new garden.

This is where I was at yesterday. This morning will be groundcloth, foundation and hopefully construction.

Will update later this afternoon.

[JeremyH]

Looking good man!

[shelljeep]

Thanks mang!
Just finished the ground cloth, starting to set up the foundations now. Have a customer bringing a rig over in a few, may slow me down a bit.
Then again, I may put him to work.

[TAT76]

Thats really cool with rocks from other places.. Sounds like you have a good plan for it and can't wait to see it complete.

[mxracer33x]

Looking good. We have some decent crawling near by, but I dont have much spare time to crawl, so I am working on the same thing.

I have been collecting from a few areas around, and am trying to keep them somewhat seprated with some cool transitions from one type to another. I have granite, volcanic/moss rock and then concrete chunks and formed shapes.

The concrete is pretty easy to come by, and im thinking I will end up with making that section an "aftermath" theme, just for kicks.

Keep up the good work!


Mine in the beginning, Ive collected more but cant drop it off yet, to much rain in the last 2 weeks to drive in my backyard.:-(

[shelljeep]

Thanks for the compliments.

Didn't get alot done today, got sidetracked in the shop.
Started on the comp stack, I need a few more flagstones to finish this pile the way want. I like the walls I've built so far, but I need more stone to hide the concrete/cinder blocks and I'd like to set up a steep V notch climb.
Most of the rocks are pretty well locked in place by each other but there are a few that I need to glue in place. Guess I'm gonna try Liquid Nails? Any suggestions? Cement would be an obvious option also, but the Liquid Nails would be alot easier to work with if it will do the job. Any opinions on that?
Some of these pics are out of order.
Here's a shot from the backside, showing some of the structure.


The cinderblock steps ended up as a nice spiraling stair up to the top once done.


Here's another overall of the leftside stairs, etc.


Here's a couple shots of the walls. In this pic, the wall on the right side is set at 66*, the one facing the cam is 50*.


This is a shot from the left side, the slope facing the cam is 50* at the bottom and transitions to a 70* slope that is 8" tall. There is no channel to drag teh belly through at the top edge, which may make it unclimbable. I may have to glue a couple stones on top of the plateau to fix that.

[Stormin2u]

Nice variation of rock enjoy and don't forget to include your friends.

[shelljeep]

I've got some guys I wheel with that are getting into the RC crawling also, hopefully they'll wanna join in on the fun. Looks like I need to drive 4 hours either north or west to get into a comp scene, so maybe I can get something fired up around here.

[JeremyH]

Looking good man! That sunset is nice...

Originally Posted by shelljeep

Didn't get alot done today, got sidetracked in the shop.

It's rough when you have to stop playing with your little toy trucks to start playing with your big toy trucks!

[shelljeep]

Heh, you could tell it was sunset from the quality of the light in those couple photos, very observant. We have a small cattle ranch across the street from us, their pasture, animals, do make for nice sunsets. Even better once I'm out here crawling in a finished rock garden.
Still wrestling with this YJ cage, will eat up most of my weekend, looks like. Frame tie-in, seat mounts, all rhe little details to finish rhe job ya know. It adds up.
I hope to get some time in the garden this afternoon. Will post progress if I do.

[JeremyH]

Yeah, that orange light gave it away. I like the large trees in the background and the palmettos right up next to your house....

[robert97dodge]

That flag stone looks really slick!! Have to tried climbing on the steep inclines yet? I would before you get to much concreted or glued into place.

HEre is our rock garden. It has changed quite a bit since these pics. We are about to do a lot more concrete work too. I want to make a hot tub as well like you would see in Moab.

New pics of rock garden

[shelljeep]

I can't climb the 66* slope... yet. But that's ok, it's a goal to shoot for.
It is kinda slick, and the big dimples help and hurt you at the same time. Makes it fun. Light dusting of rubber all over the face of it. LOL
I'm not using any concrete. I'm just taking my time and locking the pieces in together as I build it. Some are steadier than others, and I do plan to glue some of the smaller veneer type pieces in place. 99% of it will be dry stacked though.
My wife would kick my ass if she caught me cementing tires together.

[robert97dodge]

Originally Posted by shelljeep

I can't climb the 66* slope... yet. But that's ok, it's a goal to shoot for.
It is kinda slick, and the big dimples help and hurt you at the same time. Makes it fun. Light dusting of rubber all over the face of it. LOL
I'm not using any concrete. I'm just taking my time and locking the pieces in together as I build it. Some are steadier than others, and I do plan to glue some of the smaller veneer type pieces in place. 99% of it will be dry stacked though.
My wife would kick my ass if she caught me cementing tires together.

Hey it works great and the tires were junk anyways!! Besides once its all together you cant see any of it anyways. There are 3 49" michelins in there like 3 40" military tires a couple car tires and some logs all under those rocks.

[shelljeep]

Jes messin' w/ya man. I saw that you had it all covered pretty well.
You can still see cinder block peeking through in a couple of spots on mine. I saw where a guy used tinted sandkrete(I think it was) and built a really nice looking artificial indoor crawlspace. Looked like the same finish that UrOC, WERoCK achieved with their manmade courses.
I'm going to trim some of the edges of the flagstone to make it blend together better, and I may look into some of that to hide the seams also.

[shelljeep]

Well, I got another section done tonight but it's too dark for decent pics. So here's a link to corkysk8's bad ass, modular, indoor, manmade course that he made for a LHS. And it's called Quikcrete Sand Topper that he used, not sandkrete.

Awesome job from this guy:
Garage Rock

[alaskancrawler]

The look on that dogs face is hilarious. Awesome spot we built a course indoors. Would love to be able to be outside. Then again its friggin cold outside right now.

[black92coupe]

wow, i wish i had the room for something like that, lookin good!

[shelljeep]

Originally Posted by alaskancrawler

The look on that dogs face is hilarious. Awesome spot we built a course indoors. Would love to be able to be outside. Then again its friggin cold outside right now.

Yeah, our week of winter actually lasted almost 3 weeks this year. All the way down to the low 20's. LOL I don't really know what cold is.
I believe the dog was thinking something like "Is that food?OfoodOfoodOfood" Takes up most of that puppy's brainpower.

Originally Posted by black92coupe

wow, i wish i had the room for something like that, lookin good!

Thanks man! I think this will be fun for a long time. Adding rock, then restacking for different lines, catching the snakes, chasing the family with the snakes, ah good times.
That's one of the first things the girls said. "That's gonna have snakes in it". LOL

[corkysk8]

It takes allot of work to get rocks to grow in Louisiana. Nice work on your garden!

Thanks for the compliment on the Hobby Town rocks.