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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