I went all week starring at my almost finished patio and bare bed; dreaming of the final product. Now it is done and it feels so good I can’t stop smiling!!! The final steps took me one more day. I was up with the sun and so I was able to relax in the afternoon and enjoy my hard work.

The first phase of completing my project was to put Quick Crete in between the pavers to solidify it so we can roll over it with our trash cans. Spray the area with water so the sand sinks and compacts under the stones. Then go back and re-level some of the stones that are low or wobbly. You can do this the day before, because you want the area dry before putting down the Quick Crete. We did this in one day, so while I was letting the area dry I went ahead and started my bed prep.

Prepping the bed is really easy. I did this all by myself, just take your time and throughly clean the area. First map out where you want the bed to go. You can use your garden hose or spray paint (don’t worry it fades after you mow the grass). Once you have established your line follow it with a shovel separating the grass and bed with a small 3″ trench. If you do this a head of time you can spray Round up inside the bed and kill all the weeds. That way when you go to remove the debris it comes up much easier. I like to do things the hard way so I just used my shovel and scraped the old grass form the bed and pulled all the weeds. I then applied a thin layer of Amaze to the bare area.

Amaze is a great chemical. It prohibits the growth of the weed seeds that you don’t see in your bed. It works for almost all weeds accept torpedo grass (because the roots are too deep). The only draw back is that it is not environmentally friendly. I have searched far and wide for similar products that do the same thing with out being harmful; so far no luck. The closest thing would be corn gluten (which has received very poor ratings) or a landscape cloth (which is time consuming and unreliable). When they develop a good weed preventive that isn’t harmful you will be the first to know.

On to the next step, put your dirt in the bed. You want to use a good organic soil, stinky is a good thing. Build up your bed about 4″. You want enough soil, so when you plant your plants you are using your existing soil and new soil. Level out your bed sloping away from the house and toward the street. This should be slight, you don’t want to create mountains in your front yard and you do not need a swamp near your slab. A gentle sloped bed is ideal. Lightly coat the top with more Amaze and a high nitrogen fertilizer,

mix in the top two inches.

The fun part, place your plants according to your design. Now Stop….go get some water and sit down in front of your bed and placed plants. While you are hydrating look at the spacing of your plants. 3 gallon plants should be spaced 36″ on center, 1 gallon plants about 12″ on center depending on the variety. Do not put your 4″ plants out until after you mulch.

This is the best way to think about the spacing of your plants…how much maintenance do you want to do? Plants that are planted close together are going to become a hedge row; which will require pruning. Plants placed far apart are going to become a specimen plant. Use the guidelines above for an average shrub and for most designs. I my design I have a combination of these practices. I planted my camellias close together as well as my boxwood; both of these are to create a hedge effect. The rest of my plants are spaced properly so I don’t have to tend to those as much.

Enough of all this relaxing….time to plant your plants. Make sure and leave about 1″ of the root ball above your existing grade. This helps the plant breath. Tweak your irrigation system. I ran a small drip head to each major grouping of plants as well as where my annuals and ground cover are going to be located.

Now lets talk mulch. This is so important to your bed health. Despite all the critics out there that believe we are killing trees by using mulch, they are wrong. Pine needle mulch is the best, it is environmentally sound because it is harvested off of the forest and doesn’t require the cutting of trees. Cypress is rather controversial; sick to Grade A cypress. It is harvested from Florida cypress that is cut from lumber and the mulch is a by product. So, as long as they are using cypress in buildings there will always be this mulch. I use pine needle mulch and that is what I recommend to you. Mulch keeps the moisture in and the weeds out, it also adds valuable nutrients to the bed.

Once you have mulched place your 4″ flowers and ground cover according to the design. Plant by moving the mulch and soil directly under the plant, remove sleeve and drop in. When this is done water throughly, with hose and test irrigation system.

At this point the patio is dry. Eric pored the dry Quick Crete and I swept it into the cracks, making sure that it is completely filled. I then sprayed it with the hose saturating the concrete and rinsing off any dust on the stones themselves. Concrete takes awhile to dry even if it has an accelerator in it like Quick Crete. We will not be using the patio for a few more days, but when it is finished drying it will be so easy to use.

This project took about 6 weeks from start to finish. I now have a master plan to follow for my other projects around the house. The total cost was well under $1000.00 because I did it myself. The Gardening Made Simple Program is designed to save you money. The cost of labor is usually around 50 to 60% of the overall cost, sometimes more with hardscaping. If you have the will, we have the knowledge. In the end you will feel so good that you did it yourself and your yard is the envy of the neighborhood.

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The first step is getting your plan together. I dropped my measurements into the computer and came up with the hard scape design, the irrigation and drainage solutions and the planting design. The next phase is planning your order of operations. Demolition is the next big step, then irrigation and drainage, hard scape and planting.

I spent a few days ripping up this concrete. I wasn’t as hard as is looks. This slab was laid years ago and was improperly pored. The thickest piece was around 3″ and it had no sub base. The concrete used was a weak mixture, it was easy to pull up with a large hammer and crow bar. Around the drainage hole it was more difficult; I believe at one point real Portland Cement was used, but with leverage and sweat I was able to get it all up. I wanted to save the pieces because I am going to use them as my stepping stones in the final walkway.

Make sure and use gloves when doing this because it will rip up you hands. It is also best to consult a professional before starting this kind of work. Sometimes working with older homes, in a restorative job you can run into many odd obstacles that where not planed for, so be prepared for them.

These three pictures are the irrigation and drainage for the front yard.You want to install these first in order to hide the tubing or piping under the hard scape. I have used flex tubing for this project for several reasons. It is easy to install and fix if anything goes wrong and it is cost effective.

So let me tell you about the drainage; I have two down spouts from the house. One runs right over the main drainage to the street. We connected the the secondary down spout to the main one and ran them both in to the street drainage via a pvc tee.

The irrigation was installed with 1/2″ flex tubing attached to my main hose outlet on the left side of the front of the house. I then ran it under the house and out the other side. Thanks so my small friend,
Mary who volunteered to crawl under my house. She made sure that the tubing was not on any sharp edges or kinked to prevent water flow. We then ran it along the side of the house.

The final step before adding the sand was installing the metal edging. This helps shape the form of the walkway, keeps the sand and gravel in and binds everything for a tight fit. It is the most expensive material in this process at $20 a piece it is well worth it to have it done correctly. You can find other edging at the big hardware stores but most, if not all of them are for garden beds, not hard scape’s. I purchased these at a specialty store, Jefferson Feed.

The fun part is yet to come!! We then loaded wheel barrow after wheel barrow of sand and filled in between the metal edging where the paver’s are going to go. My friend Chris then took the long level and patted down the sand and sloped the sand away from the house and toward the road. This will insure that any run off will not go under the house or into my neighbor’s yard.

The next step is to place all the stones starting with the larger ones first all the way down the walkway. Then fill in with the medium stones and some smaller pieces. You do not want to use too many smaller pieces because they are hard to level and fit in with other stones.

Then stone by stone, level each one to work with the other, again sloping them away from the house. When working with an irregular stone, like recycled concrete, it is very important to get the sand under each stone so that it does not move or sift. Once all the stones are leveled poor gravel in between the stone to seal them in . Sweep all the excess sand and gravel into the crevasses and clean off the paver’s.

I then filled in the area between the metal edging and house with gravel and sand to give it a smooth finish. I am not done yet; because this area is for utility purposes I need to insure that the stones are not going to shift. The next step is to poor dry concrete between the paver’s then water it in. This will create a solid membrane on the surface to allow for minor movement.

The budget on this part of the project was tight, this is the break down:

Metal Edging: 9 pieces at 20.00 = 180.00

Gravel 10 bags at 3.00 = 30.00

Sand 2 yds = 65.00

Irrigation supplies total = 75.00

Drainage supplies total = 25.00

Project total = 375.00 retail cost

This is a huge under taking. I did most of the prep work by myself but the majority of the project went smoothly because I had great help. Thank you Mary, Brendan, Chris and Eric for all your hard work. The project would have taken three times as long to complete if I where on my own.

The next phase is to prep my planting beds and plant my plants!! That is the fun part!!

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There are several signs to look for when purchasing plants, any sign of stress is bad news. These signs include yellowing or drooping leaves, spots on the top or under belly of the leave, bugs, and roots coming out of the bottom of the pot. There are many reasons for the plant to find itself in such a sad state; it could mean poor care by the greenhouse or nursery professional, it could be a result of bad weather or it could be a weak plant that is prone to problems. Here are some pictures to help you better associate these problems:

Select the picture to learn more about each problem.

Root Bound Plant

Lack of Iron

Burned Leaves

Over Watering

Bugs and Discoloration

Mites on the under belly of an Azalea that cause the leaves to fade.

Aphids

Eggs on the under belly

Black Spot and Iron Deficiency

Virus on the Vinca

When we encounter these problems at the store we treat it accordingly and rarely do we ever have any additional problems. Usually, I see these issues when customers bring in samples from their yards. The best way to keep a problem free yard is to pay attention to your plants. That way when you find a problem it can be fixed quickly. It is always a good idea to bring a sample in a plastic bag to the garden center to get a professional evaluation of your problem.

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View from the Porch

This is the walkway from the front of the house to the back kitchen door. This area is primarily used for utility purposes, like the trash. It is hard to roll the trash cans in and out of this space and it looks really bad. My idea for this space is to increase the hard surface and grow a vine on the fence. When I demo this area it will give me the ability to correct the drainage problems and install irrigation.

Walkway to Kitchen Door

Walkway Problems

This is the corner of the house and a contiuation of the cracked walkway. All of this is coming up and I am going to connect the beds viually while keeping the access to the utility area.

Left Side of House

Right Side of House

These two pictures are of the front entry of the house. Here you can see the small amount of work that I have done. It is a low maintenace simple landcape, in the spring and fall I plant color along the front and it looks really good. I am just ready for the rest of the house to reflect these beds.

I have taken my pictures and measurements, thought long and hard about what I want to accomplish. Now it is time to plan the design and get the materials.

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