Quick Weekend Stone Border Project for Your Flower Beds
I love pulling up to the house and being happy just looking at it. Unfortunately, our front needed a big pick-me-up. The side flowerbed had fallen into disarray. The wood that used to hold the dirt in had rotted and last fall's leaves still covered up what was trying to grow. It was time to make a change.
Next was pricing out my border options to make sure this fit my $100 budget. Good news, concrete garden wall blocks at Home Depot are a foot long and relatively cheap. When I looked they were about $1.80, not to shabby. Knowing I had 21 feet and that I wanted to go 2 blocks high I went for 44 bricks. (It's always nice to have some wiggle room.) Throw in a few bags of paver sand, several bags of top soil (this bed was severely lacking dirt) and some manure for the roses I planned to throw in the bed and I estimated right around $100, the magic number.
Home Depot doesn't always have the most hands-on help, but don't be afraid to ask someone in the garden center to help you load 500lbs of stone onto the trailer or into the back seat. Believe me, it's to much to want to do in on your own. I brought my husband and our light trailer and we still asked for a hand. You can see, between the rock and the dirt we needed it.
Now the work begins. Removing the old wall was easy. Like I mentioned, most of the wood had rotted out anyway. Once that quick step was through I took my flat ended (Transfer Style) shovel and started making my trench. This type of shovel works best if you aren't needing to dig in, but rather, move things around. In this case, I was scooting gravel out of the way and pulling a bit of dirt up and onto the flower bed. I found that my transfer shovel was the exact width I needed for the stone so it made a great guide.
After I had a shallow trench the width of the stone and the whole length of the bed, I started leveling everything with a layer of sand. Paver sand is nice and coarse so you get an easy to level surface with wonderful drainage.
Once my trench was sandy and level, I started placing stone. Layer 1 is what took the most amount of time. Take the care to get your line straight and to space the stones in the best way possible. Each stone was about 20lbs and once you place level 2 you are't going to want to move anything. Finishing this path was tricky. It took about 3 tries to get the edge to finish exactly where I wanted. In my case I needed to make a bit more room so played with the curve of the bed. The shape of these stones makes it fairly simple to add or takeaway space.
Layer 2 follows right on top of 1 with a brick pattern. It goes much faster than layer 1. I was blown away by how much progress you feel like you're making with level 2. Before you know it, all your bricks are set and you can see what the finished product will look like.
Once the heavy lifting was done, I stirred in my new dirt and manure and moved some long over-crowded plants into my new bed. Filled in the gravel that I had moved at the beginning, gave everything a good watering, and was done in less than 3 hours. If you have a second pair of hands I'm sure you could do it in 2.
This quick garden project was just what I needed to brighten up the driveway and bring a big sense of accomplishment to my weekend. It's given the house a mini face-lift and was relatively easy.
