Many people have plastic siding/shingles and they only look bad if you look carefully. I was thinking about the fake stone pieces to cover up a poured concrete retaining wall. If I used real stone, then it would be too thick.

Have you picked your fabricator yet? If not, you’re putting the cart before the horse. You want someone local who is knowledgeable and can do great work, and who knows the local stone wholesalers. That’s your expert, who will know what’s offered locally, the reputations of the suppliers, and can view the stones in person. Find the right fabricator first. Not the cheap guy. The good seams guy. Quartzite is darn expensive to waste on the cheap guy, and then be unhappy.

I am getting older and I'm tiring of putting down 3 yards of mulch every year. We've decided to remove the mulch, re-edge and put down decorative river 1.5" river rock. I've had some experience doing this see picture one that redstone put down 10 years ago. At that time the bush in the foreground was already there we added the one in back of it and the rose bushes. I do not recall if I wrapped the weed block tightly around these plants but I know weed block is there. Very few weeds sprout here. Picture 2 and 3, where you see the side of the house with hostas I've already removed the mulch from here and edged...and the front.. note the black mulch is still in place. We want to replace with the river rock. I'm assuming I must clear the mulch (?) and put weed block down. The bushes in the foreground by the wall get trimmed shorter every 5 years or so. My question is do I put the weed block as tightly around the base of the these plants, and shrubs.... or is it perhaps better to leave maybe a one or two foot circle around to the plants with no weed block maybe pushing some stones under there ..How about the grass plants ...am I better off just leaving that area without weed block and pushing Stone around the plants and pulling weeds as they come up if any do. We've had mulch in this area for 10 years and never really had a weed problem... there is currently no weed block under the mulch.

Thank you, Joseph! Yes, this is the same fabricator who wouldn't groove out the shelf brackets. Maybe because this is quartzite? He said it's a brittle stone (thus, the mesh backing) and so it has a higher chance of cracking. He says he is only grooving out for the shelf brackets because he is rodding the stone. And because he is rodding out the stone, the super thin groove for the LED strip greatly increases the chances of cracking. It's so tiny, I found that hard to believe, but what do I know? I really can't tell if it's true or not; they seem so busy that they don't want to do anything that's out of the ordinary.