flagstones for zone 0 house perimeter — thoughts/tips?
I’m looking into putting a 5’ flagstone perimeter around our house to help with fire resistance — not required in my part of Berkeley but seems prudent! I’d like to do the work myself. A natural/rustic look is great; I’d actually prefer if it didn’t look super manicured. Any tips/best practices/cautionary tales? All appreciated. Thank you!
Jan 20, 2025
Parent Replies
I've laid flagstones myself and I've also had a landscape contractor do it. I recommend handing it off to a pro. It's all about the underpinning - digging down, putting in a layer of gravel and sand for drainage, getting it all level, and maybe using mortar to hold it in place if there will be foot traffic on it. What happens if you don't prepare the ground carefully is the flagstones start to settle, not in a nice level way, in a crooked chaotic way. They go wherever the dirt underneath takes them: gopher holes, tree roots, water flow. Then they can crack and break, and at best they have a shoddy appearance.
I do think your idea is good, though. I've been seeing lots of info about the 5' zone all around the house. We're on the edge of the hills fire zone but embers blowing down from the hills is a real concern.
A cautionary note -- if you have older friends or relatives those flagstones are treacherous to walk on -- so you might want to figure out a safe path to the part of the backyard you want to have guests in.
If you change your mind about doing it yourself, I can recommend Al Moore, a landscaper who tore out my concrete patio and replaced it with flagstones from Americana Soil and Stone. His price was reasonable and he is quite an artist with stone.
Peg Walker, Berkeley
Our house now has hardscaping around the whole zone 0, though not always to the full 5 feet. We have a few different styles - a hardscaped patio area made of square/rectangular stones, flagstone paths, and large stones heaped on each other. For the flagstone paths, my contractor put it in - he got the stones from American Soil & Stone ("Arizona Buff"), cut them into shapes, and set them in sand in a polymeric “Gator G2”rated for gaps of 1-6”. He said "it’s real important that the material is installed over a compacted base".
Feel free to contact me if you'd like to check out the paths or want my contractor information. We love them! They're my favorite zone 0 now.