EarthWorks Landscape Design & Construction

02/02/2026

An amazing opportunity for the right person wanting to hustle with this fast paced crew of flower slingers!

We are hiring! We will be filling two positions for the 2026 season: a Crew Leader/Assistant Farm Manager and another Crew Member position.
If you’d like to join the kindest, sweatiest, fiercest, fastest and most fun farm team around, full info and application instructions are on our website. Please share with anyone who might like to join our team!

07/19/2024

Small business circle of life: My current customer goes to Talking Breads bakery to pick up her Roots Cut Flower Farm bouquet club flowers. Buys cookie. Delivers cookie to me while I’m working. Love it when a plan comes together.

07/17/2024

Show and tell time! This will be a guided tour of some of the stonework and hardscape projects at the farm, discussing design considerations, construction techniques, and materials selection. Plus you get to see the farm at peak abundance!

07/01/2024

So excited to show off my pet rock collection and share a few projects completed at the farm. Follow the link for tickets and bring your curiosity!

03/29/2024

Pocket Parks. First of all, why is this not a household term? It's just so fun to say. By definition, these are small parks or greenspaces, either public or private.

A few years ago, we found ourselves with tandem opportunities to design and build landscapes on what were formerly residential building lots in Carlisle. The owners wanted to create lush green space in their neighborhood to give viewers and visitors a respite from streets and tightly packed buildings. One was for public use, at Penn State Dickinson Law and another for a homeowner who loves a tidy and lush garden, to be admired by the pedestrian neighborhood. It was great fun to juxtapose formal hardscape lines, repetitive plantings and soft forms in both of these new neighborhood additions.

Where is your favorite pocket park in Cumberland County?

03/25/2024

Where does brick fit in?
To Earthworks, brick lives in the same "natural-stone" authentic materials category as real stone.
Brick comes from the earth, first in the form of clay. It is not dyed, filled with cheap aggregate, does not erode inconsistently. Brick making is as old as the Great Wall of China. Bricks are a classic colonial material, and continue to endure. You can use them in conventional patterns like basketweave or runningbond, or border PA Bluestone work, or use as an accent or inlay with another primary paving stone.
True clay bricks gently age, sometimes growing moss in their joints, keeping their true natural color. They may softly wear, rounding and smoothing, but they endure. It's a testament to natural materials to find them in centuries-old buildings and walkways. With a proper base, a brick path will last for years to come. And also make your landscape feel classically situated.

03/22/2024

Let's be honest, it's a rather personal thing to hire someone to work in your backyard. Especially if they will be there for several months on a big project. One of the most rewarding parts of my job - one of the fringe benefits I love the most - is getting to know my customers. If we haven't met, you should know that I really like people. I like interesting conversation, I like joking around, I like engaging. We can discuss whatever I'm listening to on the radio, whatever you are studying, or just make a bunch of wisecracks.
To those of you who have hired me, it is an honor to work in your space and to know you. To those of you who are thinking of hiring Earthworks, you’ve been warned😂

For example, on Maia’s job, gorgeous George and I got to where he would just come over and show off.

03/18/2024

Tight joints. Not good for those of us who are aging and creaking with every move, but to a patio, it's the telltale sign of precision craftsmanship. The smaller the joints between each stone, the more time that was taken to carefully fit them together. Just like a perfectly-fitting jigsaw puzzle, a tightly-laid stone patio shows time and patience. When all the gaps are the same (small) spacing, you can tell that a company spent time carefully piecing each stone where it was meant to be. This, tied with a stable and smooth plane, makes for the ultimate dry-laid patio or path.

03/15/2024

But WHY dry-laid stone?
At Earthworks we genuinely believe in mortar-less stonework. We love working with nature, physics, and precision to form timeless and enduring hardscapes. Because there is no mortar or cement to crack, drystone structures are meant to flex and move with the annual freeze/thaw cycles here in the northeast.

But there's more. At the end of the day, I'm a craftsman, a purist, a perfectionist. The dopamine shot I get every time I perfectly fit two stones together tightly, with proper batter, level and placement is like nothing else. It's what drives the process. I feel strangely connected to the stone that was formed eons ago and the craftsmen who've gone before me for thousands of years.

I might just be an old soul...but pure, dry-laid stone work takes every ounce of my patience, strength, mathematics and focus. What it gives back to me and my customers is a finished product that will appear as if it was always been meant to be there.

03/13/2024

Dry-laid stone, Earthworks' specality. But what does it even mean?
Dry-stonework relies solely on gravity and friction to stand the test of time. No. Mortar. (Think The Pyramids or Machupichu, but we're not that we're insinuating our work is that level!)

But at Earthworks, we are purists. Every stone is chosen, shaped, and set so that it will endure for generations to come.
Without mortar as a liquid adhesive, one has to pay incredible attention to stability, fit, contact points, and foundational base for these creations to stand the test of time.
Like so many things in life, it's about a solid foundation. A wall 7 feet tall needs a 5 foot wide base, and courses below grade, subtle batter, and backfill for proper drainage. The foundational work will never be seen by the viewers, but it's more about what they will not see....a crumbling, failing wall. It gives us great pride to drive past a job we did ten years ago and have it look just like it did the day we built it, with the beautiful addition of lichens, moss and landscape plantings.

Next up, why do we do it this way???

02/23/2024

I get by with a little help from my friends. As I previously posted, I work solo with no employees. But that does not mean Earthworks is strictly a one-man show.

DMLandscaping, J.S. Electric, and Paul's Tree Service are three of the best buddies I could ask for. When I need top-quality excavating, electrical work or tree removal, these three friends are on speed dial. We bond over our commitment to excellence, precision, honest business practices. These gems of business people are thriving in their areas of expertise, and I happily bring them onto a job instead of mavericking my way through something. For instance, I can dig a hole with my skidsteer, but Dylan will get it within an 1/8" of my line.

I also am indebted to AH Reiff Landscape Supply Co. and several of our local plant nurseries for providing the highest quality stone and landscape plants.

All of us small business owners agree that the only thing better than a one-stop-shop is a network of professionals excelling in their craft.

02/20/2024

Earthworks: The Movie. I've been holding this one like a sneeze. And it just has to come out! This beautiful video, created by our friends captures the essence of working with natural stone, using dry-laid techniques. It demonstrates what it might look like to have a custom outdoor hardscape in real stone, done by a one-man show. We've had a dream of this video for awhile and it is truly exciting to be able to share with you what a day in the life of a stonemason looks like.

If this strikes a cord, Earthworks is now booking for 2024 and 2025 and we'd love to talk to you! Check out our website for more information: earthworkscarlisle.com