Luck Stone on US1 usually has free classes dealing with dry stack walls.
Tomatolord's advice was right on the money. You might want to invest in a
rock hammer to help even out the uneven edges and a large level 8'm or so to
make sure you aren't sloping you seams up or down.
Some types of stone are easier to work with and have smoother edges than
others.
I also built walls that got over 2 feet high and needed to order several
yards of topsoil to backfill.
However 50' of wall will take a lot of time so you may want to do a little
bit each night. From personal experience I discovered that after about 4 - 5
hours of wall I tended to get less critical of my joints.

Good luck.

"Tomatolord" wrote in message
...
yes a few tips

1 - spread the work out over many days - say 2-3 feet a day - or your back
will give out
2 - you dont need mortar at all - unless you go over 4 feet - all of my
walls have no mortar and are dry stacked
3 - add dirt into gaps so that you can plant some plants for looks, you
can
even skip a stone or 2 to leave a larger gap for a planting hole -
4 - 2 over 1 is the rule of thumb - 2 stones then the stone on top goes in
the between the split
5 2 foot is not that high - however you want a slight lean backwards to
the
wall
6 - curves are nicer than straight lines
7 - I did not worry about the bottom being flat, the stones can compensate
for the uneveness
8 - I backfilled mine with mulch that was ground 3 times (by me with a
chipper)
9 - soil upto 2 feet from the wall will be very dry - the sun heats the
stones and drys out the soil, plus the increased drainage so plan
accordingly
10 - keep the bigger flatter stones for the top cap
11 - you may even want to place a stone out like a ledge - toads like
these
little shade ledges
12 - be prepared for snakes in the spring - they use the wall to scrape
off
their skins.


send a picture when you are done -

tomatolord



----- Original Message -----
From: "Gena"
Newsgroups: triangle.gardens
Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2003 8:19 PM
Subject: stone wall help needed..


i am going to build a stacked (and mortared) stone wall that will be
about
2' high and 50' long.

has anyone here done this kind of work themselves? i'd love some
feedback
on your experience before i get started. i've read a couple of books,
but
nothing teaches like experince!

gena


"Gena" wrote in message
...
i am going to build a stacked (and mortared) stone wall that will be
about
2' high and 50' long.

has anyone here done this kind of work themselves? i'd love some
feedback
on your experience before i get started. i've read a couple of books,
but
nothing teaches like experince!

gena