Out of the Weeds
Turning a weed infested yard into a lush paradise is a big task...one we're tackling one step at a time. You'll hear how we're going about it, what we found that works, and what missteps we'll take along the way.
by JasonL
by JasonL
Blog Posts by JasonL
Installing a Flower Bed Over Grass
By JasonL on May 19, 2008 10:432 Comments | Share | 1810 Views | Problem?
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Out of the Weeds
Recent Blog Posts
Equipment
- Border Material
- Gardening Cloth
- Top Soil
- Garden Soil
- Plants and/or seeds
Tools
- Flat Blade Shovel
- Normal Curved Blade Shovel
- Garden Trowel
- Wheelbarrow
- Scissors
- 1"x3"x2' piece of scrap wood
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1The first step is to figure out the design of your garden. There are many factors including yard space, border type, sun/shade in your yard, and the type of flowers you'd like to grow. Here's a few resources for you to get started: Flower Garden Design Basics, Garden Wise Guy, Flower Gardening Made Easy, Designing Your Flower Garden For Year-Round Beauty, and The Flower Expert. You can now buy the border material that you'll need (we went with "scalloped" red bricks from Home Depot) as well as the top soil you'll need. |
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2Next you need to put down the outline of your garden. You can either just set out the border material you're using, or use a rope or hose to trace the path. We just set out our border to make sure it fit the way we expected. |
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3Now for the fun part (yes, I'm being incredibly sarcastic), it's time to rip up your grass. What I found to work best for me was to score the grass about 2"-4" deep with the flat blade shovel in a grid pattern, with each square about 1' by 1'. You can then scoop under the grass with the shovel and lift out most of the roots. |
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4Now you will need to till or turn over the soil to help break up any remaining root clumps. You can either use a tiller or just use your shovel like I did. |
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5It's now time to add the top soil, be sure to start at the back so you will have easy access to all parts of the garden. |
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6You can now install the border. |
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7Smooth the dirt out using the piece of scrap wood, filling in any holes that appear. It's normally best to create a gentle slope with the back of the garden slightly higher than the front. For our garden we're adding a raised portion at the back so you can still see the dirt piled up there. If you don't want a raised part then skip to step #13 |
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8Lay out the border for the raised portion of the bed. |
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9Now that you know where the border is going, pack down and flatten that area so the first layer of the border lays flat and is secure. |
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10Build up the wall on 2/3rds of the wall to the final height you want it to be. You can fill in gaps on the ends by breaking the bricks with a masonry chisel. |
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11Fill the remaining space with dirt up to the top of the wall. Leave a little extra dirt in there to fill in the gap once you finish the wall. |
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12Finish building the wall, fill the remaining space with dirt and level the it off. We also added a little white fence to the top. |
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13Now it's finally time to get the plants in there! Plant any transplants you're using and/or sow your seeds where you had planned on them going and sit back and enjoy! |
Update 7/7/2008:
Here's the garden after 2 months
What type of garden have you put in lately?
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Related Categories
Equipment | Flowers | Garden design | Hand tools | Seed starting | SoilRelated Tags
Design | Equipment | Flower | Garden | Garden Design | Grass | Hose | Seed | Shovel | Soil | Tool | TrowelComments
Butterfly, Posted about 1 year ago
This was very helpful for me. For the past month I have been trying to start a butterfly garden for my 4-year-old daughter. I have very beautiful grass that I tried killing by smothering with plastic, digging up, and just praying that it would die. I now realize that I am just going to have to dig it up :-( I put gardenign soil on top of the plastic and that just didnt seem to be the right thing to do (even though other people say they have done it) So, now I have to take up the gardening soil and start over. Wish me luck. Also, I woul love to see a picture of what your garden looks like now
JasonL, Posted about 1 year ago
Digging up the grass is definitely rough but worth it in the long run in my opinion. We haven't had any crop up since we put in the garden. I'll take a picture and upload it shortly now that some of the flowers are coming in!