We’ve been noticing lately that a talent for stonework is more than an extra feather in the cap for garden designers. Wilder planting can stand or fall on the hard landscaping; crisp edges are one way of signifying that “here is a garden.”
Ecological garden designer Tom Eaglestone, based in Bath, on the edge of the Cotswolds, is as stone-obsessed as he is plant-obsessed. The native stone there is glorious, but he uses other materials as well. It just depends on what he finds on site. “I’ve always tried to see what’s already in the garden and what we can find; that makes a lot of sense for me,” he explains. Crazy patchwork paving is one way of dealing with random shapes of stone: “It’s a funny thing—people think it looks complicated, or very hard, but when you work with what you’ve got, it’s so satisfying when exactly the right piece of stone fits into the jigsaw.”
Below, we ask him our burning questions about how to be more sustainable in our approach to hardscaping.
Above: A Costswold home, through and through, from the ground up.
Eaglestone is fortunate to live and work in southwest England, known for its honey-colored limestone. The buildings seem to rise out of the rock, and it follows that pathways, edgings, and walls would be made from the same materials. When gardeners import Cotswold stone to other parts of the country, it can look completely wrong. Stone should to come from a local quarry. Materials found on site, hidden under hedges, in flower beds, lying around here and there, lead the way.
Above: A water spout made from a boulder that was helped along. Tom loves to use stone that “just feels right.”
“There is something deeply satisfying about taking characterful, trodden, marked, and weather-beaten stone—stone that must have been around a very long time—and repurposing into something new and cohesive and aesthetically pleasing,” says Tom. “It is very absorbing, tactile work.”
Is your garden probiotic? In other words, is it teeming with beneficial microbes that vastly outnumber pathogens and keep you healthy? Looking at your landscape from this angle, suggests British ecological gardener and designer Sid Hill, can be an easy way to boost your gut health.
Gardeners tend to have healthier microbiomes than non-gardeners, he says, since handling plants and soil and working outdoors increases our intake of the good guys, which easily enter our systems. Biodiversity in plants boosts the biodiversity of our gut flora. So, removing even just lowly moss or pulling little plants out of cracks reduces this access. Instead, as gardeners we need to make sure our landscapes invite more plant life, and one way to do this is by using materials that have bioreceptivity. It’s simpler than it sounds.
Above: Gardener Sid Hill demonstrates on his YouTube channel that even the ground can be full of beneficial microbes if allowed to support moss and other small plants.
Sid is a gardener who also coaches other gardeners on how to make their spaces more effective in supporting biodiversity. His communication style is persuasive, seen to good effect on his YouTube channel and on Instagram. Growing up, Sid was home-schooled, traveling around Europe with his parents in a campervan. At age 15, he even set up his own gardening business. Sid’s style is thoughtful. He is not looking for instant fame.
Recently, we asked Sid to tell us more about how something as passive as paving or a wall can support biodiversity.
Why is it important to encourage plant life in overlooked places?
Above: Sid Hill lives in Totnes, Devon, historically a part of the ancient rainforest around the western edges of the British Isles. It’s mossy and the trees are covered with lichen. “Use materials that naturally host life on their surfaces.”
“Science is showing that our own biology is closely linked to the health and diversity of plants in the landscape. We are constantly exchanging microbes with the environments around us. When those environments are thriving with plant life, that microbial exchange helps to strengthen our personal microbiome. And diversity is key.”
What materials in a garden are bioreceptive?
Above: Sid made this paving using local slate and stone, and aged wood as seating. In a bucket of water, he broke up moss that he gathered nearby and applied it to the cracks, which soon became green.
“Natural stone, weathered wood, and other organic materials are bioreceptive in the sense that they have the ability to host life. Surface texture is a huge factor in whether something supports life or not (the ingredients for this are shelter, water, and nutrients). That’s why cracks in paving are so successful: those crevices provide shelter from disturbance, hold moisture, and capture organic matter, which offers nutrition for mosses and other plants to establish.”
How do you reduce the impact of paving?
Above: To bind together pathways, Sid uses soilcrete. “It creates a semi-permeable surface which helps soften hard landscaping and bring life back into those built areas.”
“I’m an experimental gardener, always testing ideas and playing with new theories. The idea behind ‘soilcrete’ is to create a mix of roughly 5:1 garden soil to cement instead of using sand. Sand extraction has a huge environmental footprint, although, of course, cement is even more impactful. It’s very easy to use, but natural builders I’ve spoken to have since suggested using lime instead of cement. I haven’t tested that yet, so for me it’s still open for experimentation.”
How can we adjust or improve the hard landscaping we already have?
Above: Resist the impulse to tidy every crack and crevice.
“The key is to make plant growth look intentional. Allow moss to grow in a geometric pattern through paving cracks. Lift a few paving slabs and plant herbs or ornamental grasses in those gaps. Or you can sow wildflowers into the cracks so you end up with a patio that offers bursts of flowers through the season, rather than something that feels neglected or overgrown.”
Overhauling a townhouse backyard after a renovation is a fairly common assignment for a New York City landscape designer. For one recent project, Julie Farris, the founder of XS Space, was given different a task. “Rather than erase and start anew as most projects do, the goal with this project was to identify the aspects of the previous garden, and to try to magnify those aspects in a more targeted and precise way,” says Farris. The results are a garden that felt deeply personal from Day One.
Farris’s clients had lived in their Brooklyn brownstone for some time before deciding to add an addition to the ground level. The family loved their home and slightly wild yard, where they had built many memories. “It sort of had this secret garden kind of feel,” says Farris. But as is so often the case post-construction, the 20 x 45-foot garden was left in a sorry state in need of a total overhaul.
“They wanted it to feel very natural and organic—sort of revealing what was there rather than inventing a new landscape,” says Farris. The clients requested a stretch of grass for the kids and a little more privacy from the nearby neighbors, but they didn’t have a laundry list of outdoor rooms and functions they wanted to cram into their space. What they wanted was simply a garden.
“It was more about having a quiet sanctuary for their family and some friends and not being a showy kind of garden,” says Farris. The family was also intent on doing it as sustainably as possible. “They wanted native plantings, birds, and butterflies,” says Farris.
The resulting garden is something of a sleight of hand: It honors the spirit of the previous garden, but almost every inch of it was built from scratch. It’s a lesson in the power of restraint and resourcefulness: All the sustainable materials and climate-appropriate plants make this garden feel like it belongs here. Now it’s ready for decades more memories.
Above: Architecture firm Bangia Agostinho Architecture designed the two-story rear extension and deck on the house. The renovation resulted in three different outdoor spaces for Farris to design: The backyard, a new deck, and a little terrace off of the primary bedroom that sits on the roof of the extension. Above: Farris describes designing the garden as a process of “sculpting the edges” to draw the eye outwards. “There’s this negative space, and then you’re just kind of feeling how you want to structure the space in terms of hierarchy and softness,” she says.
From whimsical thought to success, the idea developed while stoned is paying off with major sponsorship.
Sometimes those “what if?” ideas starting mid-sesh actually turn into something brilliant. As an example, the idea developed while stoned is paying off for there buddies. Just ask Pete Davidson and Colin Jost. What began as a hazy, half-joking idea while consuming cannabis — to buy an old Staten Island Ferry — has now become one of the best “high-deas” to ever float into reality.
Back in 2022, Davidson and his pal Colin Jost impulsively bought a decommissioned Staten Island ferry for $280,000. At the time, even their Saturday Night Live castmates weren’t sure if it was a punchline or a midlife crisis in motion. Davidson himself admitted it wasn’t exactly a sober moment of inspiration. “It was definitely one of those ideas that seemed genius at the time,” he joked later.
But here’s the twist: the offbeat purchase just turned into a marketing goldmine. The ferry — once destined for scrap — is now being transformed into a floating entertainment venue. And in the latest proof this high-idea turned high-value, Nike just inked a deal to advertise on it. Yes, Nike. The global sports giant saw enough cool factor (and cultural relevance) in Davidson’s drifting dream to climb aboard.
In fiscal year 2025 (ended May 31, 2025), Nike spent $4.689 billion on marketing, which they refer to as “demand creation expense”. In fiscal year 2024, the amount spent was $4.285 billion.
It’s a perfect example of how cannabis-fueled creativity can sometimes spark surprisingly good business instincts. The old ferry, now renamed the Titanic 2 (because of course it is), is set to host comedy shows, concerts, and exclusive events — think floating SNL energy with a downtown edge. Davidson and Jost’s offbeat vision could soon be New York’s most unlikely hotspot.
And while the move might have seemed reckless, it reflects something larger happening in pop culture: the normalization of cannabis and its creative influence. For decades, cannabis users were dismissed as lazy or unrealistic. Yet some of today’s best ideas — from tech startups to entertainment ventures — have emerged from relaxed, imaginative brainstorming sessions.
Pete Davidson’s ferry adventure proves that not every “stoned idea” sinks. Some actually sail — and make money while doing it.
A Los Angeles County jury found businesses that make or distribute engineered stone at fault Wednesday for the suffering of a 34-year-old stonecutter afflicted with an incurable disease.
In a decision watched closely by silicosis experts and the stone industry, jurors deliberating at Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown L.A. decided largely in favor of Gustavo Reyes Gonzalez, who was diagnosed with silicosis and had to undergo a double lung transplant after years of cutting engineered stone countertops.
The decision followed deliberations that spanned five days of the multi-week trial. Before the verdict, the two sides in the case had agreed that economic losses for Reyes Gonzalez exceeded $8 million.
The jury decided that other damages — which could include physical pain, mental suffering and emotional distress — amounted to more than $44 million. However, because the jury did not deem the defendants wholly responsible for those damages, they will not be collectively liable for the full amount.
It concluded that Caesarstone USA bore 15% of the responsibility, Cambria 10% and Color Marble 2.5%. The court will ultimately determine how much each defendant must pay.
Reyes Gonzalez is among scores of California countertop cutters who have sued companies like Caesarstone and Cambria after falling ill with silicosis, which is caused by inhaling tiny particles of crystalline silica.
His case was the first to go to trial, according to his attorneys. It tested whether companies that manufacture or distribute slabs of artificial stone, commonly marketed as quartz, could be held responsible for the ravages of silicosis, an ancient disease now emerging among countertop cutters barely in middle age.
Scientists have linked the eruption of silicosis cases among stonecutters to the booming popularity of engineered stone, which is typically much higher in lung-scarring silica than natural stone such as granite or marble. In California, more than a dozen countertop cutters have died of silicosis in recent years. In a recent study of the emerging cases and fatalities, researchers found the median age at death was 46.
Attorneys for Reyes Gonzalez argued that the companies had failed to provide sufficient warning about the dangers of cutting the slabs and that the risks far outweighed the benefits of their products. Gilbert Purcell, one of his lawyers, told the jury that engineered stone has “nasty, nasty risks” that had not been properly disclosed.
“A company should never needlessly cause risk to others,” Purcell said, “and that’s what they did.”
For instance, Purcell argued, Cambria had failed for a decade and a half to warn that silica dust could be an invisible hazard. How can workers avoid breathing dust, he argued, “when you can’t even know you’re breathing it because it’s invisible?”
A cloud of dust envelops a countertop fabricator cutting engineered stone at a Sun Valley shop last year.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Lawyers representing companies that make or distribute engineered stone argued that the operators of the Orange County workshops where Reyes Gonzalez worked were to blame. If they had used the proper protections, he would not have gotten silicosis, said Peter Strotz, an attorney representing Caesarstone USA.
“They knew what they had to do. They didn’t do it. … Worst of all, they deceived Mr. Reyes Gonzalez. They led him to believe he would be protected when he was not,” Strotz told the jury. He argued Caesarstone USA had done its part by providing safety information and should not be blamed for the “misuse” of its products.
Cambria attorney Lindsay Weiss said the company had provided warnings, including labels on the slabs themselves, and offered free training to the “fabricators” who cut, grind and polish the material to shape it into countertops.
She held up a sample of its quartz surfacing material to the jury, telling them it was safe. “The problem is when people don’t follow the law when they handle this product,” Weiss said.
And Color Marble, a distributor, argued there was no proof that Reyes Gonzalez had cut or polished slabs sold by its company. The jury found Color Marble liable for negligence — as it did Caesarstone USA and Cambria — but did not deem it liable for other claims for product liability as it had for those firms.
The lawsuit initially targeted a long list of companies, but all but three — Caesarstone USA, Cambria and Color Marble — were dismissed or settled before the jury reached a verdict. Attorney James Nevin, who represents Reyes Gonzalez, said most had “resolved the case pursuant to confidential agreements.”
Strotz, representing Caesarstone USA, declined to comment on the verdict.
Weiss said her client, Cambria, disagreed with the decision. “We think this is not a product issue. It’s a workplace safety issue,” she said. “This is handled safely every single day.”
Raphael Metzger, one of the attorneys representing Reyes Gonzalez, called the decision “a win for public health and occupational safety.”
He grew emotional as he praised the jurors for their work. “Only in America,” he said, “can Hispanic immigrants come here and receive justice — as they have.”
The trial, which stretched more than a month, spotlighted the dangers facing workers like Reyes Gonzalez, who testified that he came to the U.S. from the Mexican state of Veracruz as a teenager to escape poverty. For years, he worked from morning to evening cutting slabs for countertops.
Dust was rampant in the Orange County workshops where he labored, Reyes Gonzalez testified, at times so much that it looked like fog. His mask would grow filthy. Even when he used water while cutting, he said, “a lot of dust would come off” when the liquid had dried.
His wife, Wendy Torres Hernandez, said that when Reyes Gonzalez got his diagnosis, he called her crying. “He was told that there was no cure for it. There was nothing that he could do,” she said.
“I told him we would figure something out to help him, because I couldn’t just let him die,” she testified. Despondent, he told her “that he was going to start planning for his funeral.”
Reyes Gonzalez ultimately became so sick that both his lungs needed to be replaced in a transplant. The surgery may afford him only six more years to live before he needs another set of transplanted lungs — and a doctor testified that if that did happen, he would be unlikely to get a third transplant because of his age.
He will have to take a host of medications and carefully monitor his health until he dies. Because of the medicines he takes, Reyes Gonzalez said he cannot have children, which pains him because his wife adores them. Doctors might find a way for them in the future, he said, but cannot guarantee it.
Lawyers for Caesarstone and other companies focused much of their questioning on members of the Silverio family, who paid Reyes Gonzalez for his work in a string of Orange County workshops. When a co-worker named Guillermo Mora de los Santos took the stand, a defense attorney questioned him about whether the Silverio shops had ever provided trainings on workplace safety or had any “silica control program.”
Mora de los Santos said no. “We didn’t know about that — about that disease,” he said about silicosis.
Weiss, representing Cambria, stressed to the jury that Reyes Gonzalez had described sweeping up dry dust and using compressed air to clean — practices that send dust into the air — and that he wasn’t provided with an adequate mask. Nor was water used properly, she said.
In court, one of the Silverios denied having seen safety information from Caesarstone that included a video on silicosis risks, despite having signed a form saying he had received such materials.
Purcell, in his closing remarks, argued that whatever the Silverios had done or not done could not absolve the defendants. “This chain of safety starts with them.”
In its verdict, the jury had the opportunity to assign a percentage of the total responsibility to “others” besides Reyes Gonzalez and the engineered stone companies. Jurors assigned 70% to “others” and 2.5% to Reyes Gonzalez himself.
The Silica Safety Coalition, an industry group that maintains that engineered stone can and should be cut safely, said the 70% fault attributed to “others” was an acknowledgment of the unsafe practices at his workplace.
“We think the California jury was wrong to blame the slab suppliers for any of Mr. Reyes-Gonzalez’s injuries from his unsafe workplace condition, and we anticipate the verdict will be appealed by one or more parties,” the coalition said in a statement.
Juror Laura Miller, who said she disagreed with most of her fellow jurors in finding the companies liable, said after the verdict that she felt the blame lay with the Silverios. To reach their decisions in the civil case, at least nine of 12 jurors had to agree on the verdicts.
“The employer was using no precautions,” Miller said.
Nevin, one of Reyes Gonzalez’s lawyers, said in a statement that the jury had “rightly rejected” efforts to blame “unsophisticated hirers” who had not been warned of the dangers themselves.
His firm, Brayton Purcell LLP, now represents more than 150 countertop cutters with silicosis who labored at more than 350 shops, it said in a statement. “The problem is the products, not the shops.”
Much of the court case revolved around the kinds of measures needed to protect workers from silica dust from engineered stone, as a string of experts testified about the risks of cutting such slabs. Among them was Dr. Kenneth Rosenman, who testified that Reyes Gonzalez got silicosis despite having used some tools that dispense water because they were “not sufficiently protective.”
“They do not lower the dust level low enough to prevent this severe disease,” said Rosenman, chief of the division of occupational and environmental medicine at Michigan State University.
Another witness for the plaintiff, industrial hygienist Stephen Petty, said that N95 masks would be “bottom of the barrel” protection for engineered stone dust. Even the most protective respirators, which use a tank of clean air, are not a “permanent solution” because workers tend to adjust them, breaking the seal, he said.
Defense attorneys turned to other witnesses, including industrial hygienist Brian Daly, who said that engineered stone can be cut and polished safely. Reyes Gonzalez “would not have developed silicosis had his employer had a program that was protective” and followed workplace safety regulations, Daly testified.
Judge William F. Fahey had excluded testimony that attorneys representing Reyes Gonzalez had sought from Georgia Tech scientist Jenny Houlroyd, saying her study was based on data that were not provided to the court, among other issues. Her analysis had concluded that it wasn’t economically feasible to employ the measures needed to safely cut engineered stone, especially for small workshops.
Artificial stone is “a uniquely toxic product,” and neither “wet methods” nor wearing a mask would make it safe to cut and grind, Houlroyd wrote in a prepared list of her opinions.
What if your driveway were beautiful? If you have a typical American stretch of asphalt for a driveway, this question might come off as an absurd provocation, but Andrea Hurd, the founder of Mariposa Gardening & Design, has proven over and over that a beautiful place to park your car is possible. Her Bay Area firm uses their expertise in stonework and horticulture to create driveways that are an attractive addition to the landscape. Hurd’s interest in reimagining driveways doesn’t stem solely from aesthetic ambitions, though.
Trained in permaculture, Hurd worked with the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners in the 1990s. There, she learned that the water that runs over your driveway picks up oil and gas that has leaked from cars. “That polluted water goes into storm drains that go straight to the Bay,” says Hurd. One solution to manage this problem is to replace conventional driveways with permeable ones, which allow stormwater to be filtered through the soil, keeping pollutants out of natural bodies of water.
The benefits of a permeable driveway don’t end there. By keeping rainwater on a homeowner’s property, the water soaks into the ground to recharge the groundwater table. Ripping out concrete can also reduce theheat island effect, as concrete reflects the sun’s heat. And if you add plants to your new permeable driveway, you can create habitat for pollinators—not to mention improved curb appeal. Perhaps best of all? Your newly beautified driveway can be used as garden space when your car is not parked there.
Here’s what you need to know to create your own beautiful, permeable parking spot:
Photography by Saxon Holt, unless otherwise noted.
Remove the concrete.
Above: Before and after—Mariposa Gardening & Design replaced this concrete driveway in Berkeley with a permeable design that created room for many new plants, including a mixture of creeping thymes and native strawberries.
The first step to creating a permeable driveway is to remove non-permeable concrete or asphalt surfaces. Unless you’re handy with a jackhammer, this is probably a job for a pro. “Hopefully you have a driveway that was built to code, which means you’ve got a sufficient amount of base material underneath the concrete pour,” says Hurd. But if that is not the case, your contractors will need to regrade the driveway so that water slopes away from the foundation of the house.
WASHINGTON—After a particularly bad hit to the head left a member of the Commanders unresponsive, NFL gravediggers were seen rushing to the field Sunday to deliver last rites and bury the unconscious player. Several reports indicated that the crew, which drove out of the stadium tunnel in a burgundy and gold hearse, consisted of pallbearers, several brawny men with shovels, and a priest. According to sources, the NFL gravediggers cleared FedEx Field of athletes, dug a 6-foot-deep hole in the ground, checked the player for signs of life, and dropped his limp body into his final resting place. The priest reportedly turned on his microphone and delivered a 30-second eulogy. As coaches, teammates, and fans watched with bated breath, witnesses confirmed that the concussed athlete briefly gave a thumbs-up, but soon collapsed again, at which point the gravediggers proceeded to pick up their shovels, buried him under several feet of dirt, covered the hole with a fresh layer of sod, and quickly placed a Commanders-themed headstone emblazoned with “One Legacy. One Unified Future” at the grave site. At press time, over 67,000 spectators at FedEx Field were heard cheering wildly after a second player was knocked unconscious, picked up on a stretcher, and thrown into a mass grave on the Commanders sidelines.
