The art of pebble mosaics

Former tennis pro John Botica has found a new career making pebble mosaics for gardens.

One of my first landscaping jobs involved designing a detailed pebble edging that curved serpent-like through a suburban Auckland garden. To create it, a colleague and I spent three and a half weeks on our hands and knees in cold, rainy weather, first setting out the forms with plastic bendy board, then mixing the concrete in a wheelbarrow before mortaring and placing each stone carefully into the setting mix. I believe the edging still exists – or did fairly recently – but the plants quickly crept over it, hiding our craftsmanship beneath the foliage. I’ve not done another since, ...

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