Proper jointing of natural stone wall / expansion joint for single-family house

Hello dear wall experts,

to clear up any possible confusion right away - I have 2 different questions and decided to put them in one post to avoid flooding the forum...

1.) We want to build a wall from real massive fieldstones at our new house. This wall will essentially lean against the neighbor’s property, which is between 20 cm and 1 m higher than ours over a length of 20 m. So we want to create a nice finish/transition here. We thought it would look very nice if the fieldstones are pointed (mortar joints) between each other. Another advantage is that no annoying plants grow out of the cracks. Now I want to build the wall myself and wonder what the best approach is, because I obviously don’t want to ruin the stones with concrete and want to build it sensibly.

So how do I go about it? Can I use normal concrete? Can I build the wall first and then point it? How do I get the concrete into the joints most easily (for laymen)? etc...

2.) Our house will be clad in the next few days. We have chosen a Vandersanden facing brick, tumbled in WDF. Because it obviously fits such nice vintage-look facing bricks, we want to have small columns built on the corners of the house (9 m x 10.70 m) (the facing brick will be raised by 1-1.5 cm). However, these columns will not be continuous, but only blocks of 4 stones will be raised each time. In between, 3 stones will be laid normally again before the next block of 4 stones comes above. In our eyes, it looks by far best if the 3 intermediate stones, which are at the normal facing brick level, are laid all around, which would make a continuous expansion joint impossible. However, when we look around in other new building areas, it seems to be common practice today to always set expansion joints. But is that basically mandatory or highly recommended, or can it be omitted given the house size? Sure, looks are one thing, but of course it is not so important that we want to accept an inferior construction method. I have read various things about it, but I would explicitly be interested in what you say about it here!

Many thanks in advance and have a nice Sunday!

Best regards

1) Natural stone walls, especially made of rubble stones / erratics, are - even if not dry-stacked - not a suitable field of activity for beginners. If you already call the jointing material concrete, you are practically already a "declared non-expert" and would probably be better off looking in the Yellow Pages.

2) A picture or a drawing might make it clearer how to imagine these "columns" with the alternation of four protruding and three flush layers.

If we look around in other new housing developments, it seems to be common masonry practice today that expansion joints are always installed.

Expansion joints are needed where building parts may shift (also: settle) against each other, or in cases of material changes.

Could what has been seen perhaps be prefabricated brick wall houses? - in that case, this approach would exist, where in facing, they are not assembled "interlocked" on site, but each side of the wall is prefabricated separately.