My $20 Garden Bed

LA Murano
by LA Murano
5 Materials
$20
4 Hours
Medium
The area under my front porch has been the messiest spot in the yard since we moved here. The guy that built this house did many things quite oddly and this is one of them. The base of the stairs are rather large and just sort of ends. The ground was uneven and large rocks littered the area. I don't think grass was ever planted under there as it was a tangle of weeds amid bare spots. Finally I got sick of it and decided to get it fixed. First I talked to a landscaper that wanted almost $200 to redo the area. After I stopped laughing, I started planning.

Between planning and finish, this new garden bed project took several turns. I knew I needed to replace all the grass and weeds under the porch with something weed resistant. I decided a weed barrier was necessary and thought mulch would look nice. The husband shot that down with a few snarky comments about wood chips and termites near a wood sided house. *sigh*
Luckily we had a pile of pea gravel left over from when the coops were built. The gravel quickly became my replacement for the wood chips. As I looked around at the materials (odd and ends) I had around the garage, I realized that this was not going to be expensive at all. I was just going to have to do the work all myself. Well, not quite all myself... I was going to make the teenager help too!
I decided we needed something to edge it with to keep the pea gravel in and make a clean line separating it from the yard. We measured the length of the area and headed to Home Depot where we picked out some landscaping bricks.  Luckily I already had some industrial strength shipping plastic that had come wrapped around something my husbands work ordered, and I love to recylce! I was going to use this for weed barrier.
Once home we grabbed some twine and ran it from the front corner to the back corner to make a straight line. We used a long handle scraper to cut a line in the grass for the edge of the bricks. Next we cut the weed barrier to fit and placed it over the area. We placed the bricks in the trench we had just dug to hold down the fabric.
Using an exact-o knife, I cut holes in the weed barrier where each plant was to go. I used all plants that were already growing in my main garden. I transplanted a Red Veined Sorrel as the centerpiece for this garden. Next to each porch support I placed the 4 O'clocks called Marvel Of Peru. I also planned on adding hostas on each end, but the deer ate mine before I could thin them this year. Instead I brought over some potted herbs to add some height and greenery.
Once all the plants were in place we filled it in with the pea gravel. I added some stones and decorations that were getting ignored in my more crowded gardens and called it done. Since all I purchased for this project was the bricks, it cost me less then $20. If I had to purchase everything new, it would cost closer to $65. Still much better then that $200 the landscaper wanted and he hadn't even included a cost for the plants since I already had them! This project took me about 4 hours to complete. The most amount of time was spent on the trench for the bricks.
Suggested materials:
  • Bricks   (Home depot)
  • Weed barrier   (Recycled plastic, but HD also sells this)
  • Mulch   (Recycled rock, but Garden stores carry it)
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LA Murano
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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  • Suz22724278 Suz22724278 on Nov 01, 2017

    I'm assuming you don't have any cats around, otherwise you've just created a big kitty litter box for the neighborhood cats. I have a similar area right next to my front walkway that I have partly filled with stepping stones. Between the sand to set the stones and the similar gravel type substance, the neighborhood cats love using it as their personal kitty litter. And we don't even have cats!

    • LA Murano LA Murano on Nov 03, 2017
      We have barn cats and they haven't messed with it. This is actually gravel not sand, so I doubt they'd like it. Plus, they have miles of woods to go in, instead of right in the open by the house. Your sand and stepping stones area sounds lovely!
  • Happy Days Hometalker Happy Days Hometalker on Jun 14, 2018

    Love it! Next time at the craft store pick up some gold sparkly gems and scatter around.

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