Selecting and Peeling Logs

 The next step is to select, fell, cut and peel the logs for the pergola. During the months of May and June, the layer under the bark called the vascular cambium grows rapidly and is very tender. During this time the bark peels off the wood very easily and it is simply a matter of pulling off the bark in full length strips.

There are many overcrowded cedar groves in our woodlot that need thinning. This provided an ample supply of cedar logs to choose from for this project.

The eastern white cedar [Thuja occidentalis] is a tree species of choice for this build. While it is not a strong wood, it is very resistant to rot and insects and it weathers well. It is also called northern white-cedar, arborvitae and swamp-cedar. Arborvitae means "tree of life" a reference back to the 16th century when the French explorer Jacques Cartier learned from the Indians how to use the tree's foliage to treat scurvy.
Ref  http://www.borealforest.org/trees/tree14.htm

I attempted to peel the bark early -- at the end of April and also later -- in mid July and the peeling was very hard in both circumstances, pulling off only little strips of bark each time.

In all, 22 logs had to be selected and prepared in this manner and this was accomplished on schedule, before we went on a trip to the Maritimes. This also gave the logs time to dry somewhat which made them much lighter to carry.

Beginning the Pergola - Planning with a Scale Model

These photos are of a scale model 1:10 in metric or about 1:12 imperial (1 inch equals one foot.), of the pergola made from buckthorn weed tree sticks.

This was a useful exercise for getting an idea of the relative proportions of the pergola, namely of the height, depth and width as well as the desired diameters of the logs. It is also an excellent communication tool share ideas with others.

The perspective view here gives a better feel for its true appearance from the eye level at scale. (This fooled some of our FB friends into believing that this was a finished  final product. lol.)

Using a couple of Playmobil figures and plastic animals we had a little bit of fun with that. The figures were not even close to scale of the model though.

Phase 1: The Patio is Complete

We soon made good use of the patio, celebrating birthdays among other things.

Walkway to the Patio

The walkway from the house to the patio was built the same way, with a much narrower box, a layer of landscape cloth, screeded, tamped and leveled stone dust, a layer of cloth and then the patio stones. This time however I selected 2ft x 2ft patio stones to make a wider walkway. These stones were awkwardly heavy weighing over 80 pounds each. Thankfully there were only five to place.

The soil here is very fertile making for excellent topsoil but being of glacial till it is full of rocks of all sizes which is awkward to rake and smooth, so I created a sieve fashioned from wood and ½ inch hardware cloth that can be seen here installed on the ATV trailer. I reused the quality soil to do the finish landscaping.

Levelling the Stone Dust and Laying the Patio Stones

Using two pieces of 1x4 strapping I made a screed board, screwing one to the other so that from the end it looks like a 'T'. This makes for a fairly rigid while light enough board to manipulate.  I then turned it upside down and slide it along the upper and lower box boards.

It was a tedious process of screeding and then tamping and then adding some more stone dust and repeating the screeding and tamping etc. but it was worth it.Once it was complete the rest was easier because of the attention to detail at this stage.

I decided that as soon as a row of about 3½ feet was done, to roll down a row of landscape cloth which is 3 feet wide, and the first row of patio stones very carefully aligned with the starting edge of the box. I managed to get the patio stones to pack very closely together by placing a stone on its edge on an adjacent stone that is already laid. I would then slowly lower the stone ensuring that as the stone tilted away that it would slide down very tightly to the first stone. Worked like a charm.

The purpose of the landscape cloth is to inhibit weeds from growing between the tiles.

Laying down the Stone Dust

The load of stone dust has arrived. It was placed onto a tarp to keep it from mixing with the grass, and facilitate the clean up.

The next step after leveling the earth, was to lay down a layer of landscape cloth and then place the stone dust on it. The cloth will keep the subsoil earth from mixing with the stone dust which will happen over time.