Thursday, December 20, 2012

Taking Our Garden to the Edge


Seventeen years ago, upon buying our fixer-upper house, one of my early projects was carving out a bulb garden in the front yard. I dug up a wedge of grass and installed that wooden berm you see above.  Over the years, the bulb garden evolved into a rose garden (much less work for much more beauty).  Looks pretty good, doesn't it?



Well, upon closer inspection, you can see that seventeen years has not been so kind to my little wooden berm. It's rotting away and falling apart.  I need to replace it.

I don't want to just put wood back in. I'm looking for something a little more durable, easy to work with, provides a better barrier against the grass, and...since I am who I am...cheap.



My son and I went to our local Lowe's and perused the garden section for solutions.  It seemed like this pound-in plastic barrier was our best shot.

If you're going to tackle this project, I also recommend these two tools. 


A rubber mallet...



...and a medium pry bar. I really like the Stanley Wonderbar and use on just about every project I have, gardening or home repair.

To start, you want to have damp ground that's soft. Water ahead of time...I'm doing this after three days of rain so I don't have to water in.



I used the pry bar to remove the wood.  Some of it was pretty deep, deeper than I remember putting it but the pry bar pulled it all right up.

Next, get my barrier together. It comes in three-foot sections and they connect via a tongue and groove at the end of each piece.



Put a piece in place, hammer it in with the mallet. Connect the next piece and hammer it in. Continue until done.



In about 45 minutes, I'm done and the new barrier is in place.  I think another project will be to get some small river rock and cover up the barrier.



Now, what to do with all that left over wood?



I think I have a use for it. Cheers!

Darryl
Copyright 2012 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved.

1 comment:

  1. I like your philosophy of doing everything cheap :-) - that's mine also. I use similar product in my garden and they have nice so far - don't allow the grass to get in the protected area. However, the grass that grows around it, becomes difficult to be mowed.

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