Oohh I love how your wife helps you! This year my husband and I wanted to landscape our yard and I am so glad he is interested in it as well. Good time to bond even if we sometimes get frustrated during our projects lmao (because it's hard work!)
After cutting the edge you can make strip cuts slightly wider than your flat head shovel. Subsequently getting under the sod and quickly peeling it up is a breeze. Makes it super easy to reuse the sod elsewhere too! Great video Ryan. B-Roll is phenomenal.
I have used a newspaper weed barrier under mulch over and around evergreen tree roots. Just as Mrs Knorr demonstrated, the sheets of newspaper were easily to position and weeds beneath my trees were kept at bay for several years.
Awesome job Ryan! I'd recommend using a garden hose when trying to visualize the shape of the desired landscaping... and I'd also recommend treating with Preen before adding mulch... lawn u.s looking amazing as always!
smart move to get the wife involved BEFORE you start digging (-: Nice that you guys worked together. My wife works hard to help me out too even if I'm not the best about working as a pair.
On recently installed younger trees, it's suggested to plant perennials rather than replanting annuals every year. Which would end up disturbing young root system that is just spreading itself radially outbound from trunk only an inch or two under ground surface. Nice job, especially installation of plastic borderwhich is way better alternative than resharpening edge every year using concave half Moon blade.
I use cardboard as well. The one thing to be careful about though… termites love the stuff! My house is concrete so it’s not as big of a concern for me.
I have a three year old tree-farm grown Prairie Horizon Alder (developed by the University of North Dakota) that was planted by a bobcat into a roughly three foot diameter hole. After planting, the installers put a raised soil area (4 inches high maybe) around the outer edge of the planting hole and then put natural wood mulch on it and tapered it down to within an inch or so of the trunk. As the mulch blew away or decayed over the last few years, I didn't keep the grass from invading into it very well and would now like to get the grass out of there for good...and put in some lawn edging. The mulched area is not grown over to the point of being a "lawn" already but if not dealt with, I'm sure it would grow right up to the tree. I am concerned that there would be feeder routes up into that raised border area so don't want to dig the grass out with a shovel so will probably have to use a hand spade and be careful about cutting them off. I did pull up a bunch of the grass (yesterday) closest to the trunk and found a number of roots that were under the grass and are now exposed to the air. Can I just put an inch or so of topsoil over those exposed roots, dig out the rest of the invading grass by hand, ...and then dig a circle against the outer edge of the raised area, install lawn edging, and re-mulch the area again? Would that edging be too close to those feeder roots and damage them? I don't want to remove/flatten the raised area so was thinking of cutting out the grass further away by a foot or two in a bigger circle or in a design like you did, and then installing the edging out there and re-mulching the whole thing. I am assuming that if I was to do the larger mulch area, I would have to not put too much mulch up on top of those feeder roots in the raised area so they can breath???. I also don't really know how/where those feeder routes grow to after. Do they go back down as they get further from the tree or run just under the lawn? Will putting lawn edging 3-4 feet away from the tree impede those roots in the future? Can you give me some guidance on this please. Thanks.
Nice work. Viewers should be aware that newspaper will act as a barrier for water going in and cause it to run off away from the plants and tree roots. The openings above each plant are minimal, so this is a real problem when in summer season. It also harm the tree by depriving it of water except beyond the bed. This is a serious problem if the bed extends out beyond the tree's branches. Just be aware and watch the tree for any signs of browning leaves.
Don't forget to mention that tree trunks don't like mulch on top of them. It causes issues. I make sure to mulch around the tree leaving about 6in unmulched around the trunk
Hey Ryan. I highly recommend skipping fabric in mulch areas and treating the soil with Preen before mulching. It can also be applied occasionally after the mulch is installed to prevent unwanted weed growth. Looks great!
This looks great! Just found your channel recently, and you have a beautiful yard! Like some of the others have said, I use cardboard or newspaper over the ground under colored mulch. I find the newspaper lasts about a year, which is good, since it is much more amenable to breakdown and the biodiversity of the life below than landscape fabric, which I have also used. I will definitely try this new type of border. In the past, I used the old kind that stuck down in the soil but also heaved itself into horrid shapes over the seasons.
I moved into my first home late last summer. I had severely overgrown garden beds from the previous owners. I had no idea where to start. Then someone recommended cardboard. So easy and works well to kill preexisting weeds that are just too much to remove by hand. The previous owners used landscaping fabric… it’s shredded into hundreds of pieces, sticking up here and there. Looks terrible.
I found while removing the turf use a straight edgeing tool and do like 6 inch wide stripes and u can peel it up by hand with very little effort ! Definitely easier than being on hands and knees prying with a spade shovel or short handle landscape shovel
Dang bro ! Looks really nice! I use Col-Met edging and been using it for a decade. No heaving during seasonal temp changes either - at least for me that is. 👍👍👍😎👊
sharpen your garden spade on an angle grinder then cut the sod into small 1ft squares. Its very easy to lift like and get under like this. Also you can use the garden spade to edge too since its razor sharp. Ive done so many beds in my bermuda like this. Works great.
curious if you had to cut any tree roots... also, I appreciate that you didn’t get too close to the tree. too many people think you can pile up the soil, covering the root flare - and slowly killing their tree.
I have a sugar maple that's triangular. I've thought about building landscaping timbers around it making a hexagon. Then filling the wood with mulch. This tree is like 60 years old. I wouldn't do the flowers. If I fill the hex up level to the top, the base of the tree would be even without building up a hill. Mulch near the base can choke a tree, but if it's 40 foot tall, I doubt you'll choke it.
hey Ryan nice job ! small tips to see before digging expand the gardening hose on the grass to see where to cut and use big rusted nail to fit the plastic barrier !! sorry for my engish im french canadian . ave a greath day
