Building our brick lawn barrier, June 10, 2004
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Yesterday, in our backyard I did some digging and found 78 bricks that used to be a patio. They were all overgrown
with grass, so it was a bit of a job to pry them out and then backfill all the holes. But the work was worth it because
today I used all of those bricks to create a barrier between our front flowerbeds and the lawn. A neighbor down the
street has a similar border around their lawn, so that gave me a good idea of what I needed to do.
I first staked a string to line out the grass I was going to cut, then I followed the string with the lawn edger.
I removed about 40 feet of sod ranging from 10" to 2" wide. I widened the beds in a couple places to lessen the curves
so it will be easier to mow. With the sod gone, I was able to remove enough dirt to allow for the plastic lawn barrier.
I used the edger and a thin piece of paneling to smooth out the wall of the trough so the pastic liner would fit snug.
In the first three pictures here, you will notice that I put the plastic barrier on the bedding side of the trough.
Fortunately for me, Kim called me on my cell phone while I was doing this and when I described what I had done, she
caught my mistake and reminded me that the barrier needed to go on the GRASS side. Duh!
All I had to do to correct my mistake was smooth out the grass side of the trough and replace the liner. Since the liner was about
twice as deep as the bricks, I had to remove a lot of dirt so the top of the liner would be above ground level, but lower
than the grass level. I placed bricks along the liner to hold it all in place while I went around and filled and tamped
in dirt so that the bricks would be level with the top of the liner.
It took me about three hours from start to finish, and I still need to get some angled bricks for the curved part but
I must say that I am very pleased with the results. Now the grass will stay out of the flowerbeds and I can mow easily
without having to go back with the hand clippers!
