CLE_diyer
New Member
Hi,
Brand new here and hoping I'm posting in the right place. I've been researching on installing an edging border for our back yard. We bought the home a few years ago and there were a few things that the previous owners did that kind of defied logic, so we're in the process of fixing those things.
One of them is that they installed fencing with a solid foot of gap between the bottom of the fence and the ground (don't ask me why, your guess is as good as mine). Underneath the fencing, they put in some kind of narrow rock bed with landscape fabric and what I *think* is sandy portland cement of some kind. To cap it off, they used white wood boards up against the fence posts to act as an edger. Ugh.
We're getting rid of all of that and putting in a line of bricks up against the sidewalk and concrete scalloped edgers in front. Eventually we plan to plant berry bushes up along the fence in our back yard to cover up the stupid gap.
My main question is this: do I still need to buy paver base and/or leveling sand for the brick border? (And for the edgers too, for that matter?) I did a quick dig to see what was underneath the rocks and like I said earlier, it looks like a crumbly mix of cement, sand and gravel and it seems to go deep too. I plan to buy a trenching spade and really get into it this weekend to see what's under there. I was kind of thinking (hoping, since it would save $$$) it might be possible to just reuse the existing cement/sand mix and just tamp it down and be done with it and top it off with polymeric sand once I get everything in place.
Goal is to do this over Memorial weekend.
Brand new here and hoping I'm posting in the right place. I've been researching on installing an edging border for our back yard. We bought the home a few years ago and there were a few things that the previous owners did that kind of defied logic, so we're in the process of fixing those things.
One of them is that they installed fencing with a solid foot of gap between the bottom of the fence and the ground (don't ask me why, your guess is as good as mine). Underneath the fencing, they put in some kind of narrow rock bed with landscape fabric and what I *think* is sandy portland cement of some kind. To cap it off, they used white wood boards up against the fence posts to act as an edger. Ugh.
We're getting rid of all of that and putting in a line of bricks up against the sidewalk and concrete scalloped edgers in front. Eventually we plan to plant berry bushes up along the fence in our back yard to cover up the stupid gap.
My main question is this: do I still need to buy paver base and/or leveling sand for the brick border? (And for the edgers too, for that matter?) I did a quick dig to see what was underneath the rocks and like I said earlier, it looks like a crumbly mix of cement, sand and gravel and it seems to go deep too. I plan to buy a trenching spade and really get into it this weekend to see what's under there. I was kind of thinking (hoping, since it would save $$$) it might be possible to just reuse the existing cement/sand mix and just tamp it down and be done with it and top it off with polymeric sand once I get everything in place.
Goal is to do this over Memorial weekend.