Garden Edging - mucked up ?

[TomDunreedy]

Hi all,

I've probably done all my design work the wrong way....
Anyway, we just placed some lawn down in our backyard, now we want to place some limestone blocks down along the lawn to seperate it from our garden.
Our lawn is a little undulating...
Should we try and level out our lawn (i.e. dig out the soil underneath the lawn which we can lift up as it hasn't rooted yet) and make the edging completely level ?

Or can we have the edging slope with the curves of the lawn ?

I've placed the limestone down at the moment and looks a little funny if it's not level....

Thoughts?

As you can see I'm a complete novice!!

Thanks

[joe greiner]

Question of appearance more than anything else. Even retaining wall footings can be sloped if convenient, without any structural penalty. Caltrans (California Department of Transportation) allows about 5% IIRC, and that's in earthquake territory. Depending upon the amount of undulation, a stepped/level layout could also look odd. Could include both types if it reduces oddness.

Joe

[Bleedin Thumb]

Make your edging fall at an even slope or rake. You can easily get the turf up by top dressing or a bit of lifting.
The edging is your visual reference point so it has to flow evenly or else it will look like a dinosaurs backbone.

[Tip]

G'day,

I would lay down hose where you want your line of the limestone to be, mark the line, then cut back until you hit something solid (in my backyard it was 10cm until clay) then i would lay down a layer of crushed rock (about 3cm or so) and then lay down the limestone. you'll find that the crushed rock will help you even out the edging and it won't move as its effectivly been dug in.

best of luck.

[TomDunreedy]

Thanks all.

I probably should have mentioned that the yard is actually flat and the grass should also be flat, but we rushed into laying the lawn and we didn't level it properly and there are sections which are higher (and lower) than others.
Is it worth lifting the turf and level the soil underneath it by simply digging it out?
The turf was only layed last week so it hasn't rooted yet.

The blocks do look a little like a dinosaur back !

The garden bed is 1.5m from our back fence which is level....so it does look a little funny.

Thanks heaps.

[rhancock]

Take some pics for us....

[Spelunx]

Given that everything is flat, I would be making the blocks on the same level as the fence, that way it will all look kosher. Make sure you use a spirit level and string-line, and the entire thing will be level from one end to the other.

Then you have room to top-dress the lawn, and bring it up to the level you want. It is easier to bring the lawn up, than try and drop it down!

[Burnsy]

Roll the lawn up and re-screed the sand underneath flat, you won't regret it, especially if it is not a huge area. In regard to the limestone, keep it level or running on an even gradient always. The way you lay the limestone will depend on what you plan to grow in the beds and what size the blocks are. If they are just flower beds with no big trees, you are on the sandplain in Perth and the blocks are at least 200 x 350 x 500 in size you will get away with laying the blocks directly onto a compacted clean sand bed that you have screeded flat. The blocks need to be at least 100mm in the ground to get good support using this method. When you fill the joints, don't be lazy, make sure they are filled right up and there are no air gaps by using a trowel as a poker and jabbing it up and down in the joint. You will be surprised how hard it is to break a block out once they are laid this way, the morter joins provide great strength by locking them all in place.

If you plan on having some medium trees in the bed, lay the blocks directly onto a concrete (not morter) mix that is at least 50mm thick with the block still protruding at least 75mm into the ground. The concrete should be about 50mm wider than each side of the block. This method uses alot of concrete, about 4 - 6 blocks per mix but for an amature gives you much more freedom to level the block in situ rather than laying directly onto a sand bed. If you have large trees, they will always lift the blocks eventually so go with either method. I have layed thousands of blocks in Perth using both these methods and never had a comeback on a job. When laying smaller blocks I always use a concrete bed.

[TomDunreedy]

yeah - I'm thinking that.
Here are a few pics....see my predicament?
(I hope the attachments work - first time)

Excuse the fence - it's being replaced soon....

Thanks.
Attachment 49937

Attachment 49938

[Burnsy]

That looks like St James. I would definitely lay those blocks on a concrete bed as they are only small. The turf does not look that bad, though it is hard to tell from the photo. You may get away with just hiring a compactor and running it over the whole lot if you haven't already done that. You will be amazed how much a compactor will even out a new lawn. Looks to be a pretty decent sized area, hire a leveller from Kennards if you do roll the turf up again, they make light work of flattening out sand for turf it is like a big grate that you drag around and it pulls the top off the high areras and leaves it in the low areas. If you want a bowling green look you will need a dead flat surface to start with so do this rather than trying the compactor option. I don't envy you, nothing worse than redoing a job like that.

Looks like you may have some issues with retaining and your soon to be replaced fence, from the photo's it seem the neigbours yard is lower.

[Spelunx]

Burnsy is right, preparation is everything!

If you really want the job to look 100%, start all over again.

You have a shot at leveling the lawn by top-dressing with sand, but you don't have any chance of leveling the blocks.

Follow Burnsy's advice in regards to the blocks. I used recycled bricks for my garden edgeing, and they worked a reat. The added advantage of a deep footing is that the F&*^ing couch grass will take a lot longer to come through. If I had my time again, I would have dig a 4m footing, and back-filled with tubing so I could pump in Round-up every six months, plus chucked a couple of land-mines in there for good measure. Did I mention I HATE couch grass?

Anyway, buy yourself a trenching shovel from WA Scavenge for $12 or so, it will be worth it's weight in gold!

As burnsy mentioned, follow the natural curve of the land, but make it very gradual, not up and down with each brick, otherwise it will look woeful.


You do have a large area to do, so perhaps the compactor is the way to go. Then chalk it up to experience, next time you lay a lawn, do the preparation, and the job will take half as much effort.

Have you put any thought into retic? That is a bugger of a job after laying the lawn too!

[TomDunreedy]

thankfully - the retic was well planned !!!!
It just seemed the back yard was level to a certain degree....until we started the edging!

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions, I think I'll roll up some sections of the lawn and level it as well as I can, then build the edging as Burnsy describes.

Bloody hell....preparation is everything !

[rhancock]

The edging looks wobbly because your brain measures it against the straight line of the fence. Plant some strappy plants like liriope, dianella or lomandra along it and you won't have a problem.

[Planned LScape]

Bloody hell....preparation is everything !

haha... bloody oath, especially with labour intensive work like landscaping, but as per anything else the preparation determines how easy the rest of it is.

Usually with landscaping the hardscape items come 1st- like your walls, services, paving etc, then softscape comes last- gardens then lawns. That way you could lay your rock wall to a level stringline (or close) then lay your lawn with some drainage fall to suit.

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

The edging looks wobbly because your brain measures it against the straight line of the fence. Plant some strappy plants like liriope, dianella or lomandra along it and you won't have a problem.

I agree. Nature abhors straight lines anyway and IMHO they don't look right in most gardens. Unless you're planning on making a statement exploring diametric compositions of nature and artifice? No? What I mean is, don't bother trying to get 'em laser-line exact. The eye will ignore gentle variation once the plants go in.

If it really fusses you, as you said the turf hasn't (or hadn't at the time of posting, anyway) rooted yet, so you could always pull back the nearest few feet of turf and dress with top soil to re-establish levels along the edging. I wouldn't be so anal as to do the whole lawn, though...

Personally I'd put some plantings in, leave it for a year or two until it's established and then, if it still looks wrong to you, start top dressing to fill the 'oles.