Digging landscaping beds?

Short of hiring a landscaping company, any suggestions for tools or other to dig landscaping beds? We'd like to get a few beds planted this fall to enjoy the flowers in the spring. And ideally tear out the builder's crappy plants and put in something more worthwhile. Though we experienced clay at our old house, this stuff seems more rocky. Any ideas?

 

I took on a weekend project to dig a large bed in our front yard a couple of summers ago. This is what I did:
- Dug out the top grass layer (no small feat).
- Rented a tiller from home depot for half a day. HD rents several different sizes, I think I got one of the medium-sized ones. The larger the tiller, the larger the rocks it will be able to handle.
- Mix-in soil conditioner (breaks up the clay) during the tilling. Till to about a foot in depth.
- The next weekend we had Bluemont (or someone like them) deliver a large load of topsoil, and we poured that on top of the tilled/conditioned "clay."

It was a lot of work, but we ended up with a large bed with lots of good, soft soil.

Good luck!

 

One challenge with digging anything, especially a flower bed, is where to put the crappy dirt/clay/rocks that you dig up. A lot obviously depends on where your lot is and what kind of woods you have near you or on your property.

 

My approach:

Use a gas powered edger and cut in the location of the bed. Make two passes at it, one with the blade vertical, and on the next pass angle the blade. This will creat a trough, and the sod can be easily removed.

At this point, the easiest thing to do is to add 6 or more inches of good top soil right on to the grass. This approach eliminates the need to remove a significant amount of sod. No need to remove the sod. This has worked great for me in beds around the house, and for an island bed.

If you wish to remove the sod, I've had great luck using the gas powered Mantis. This little gem of a machine is like a badger. It digs with incredible efficiency. It's hard to believe something as light and small can do the job. They rent Matis' at Home Depot. I find it much easier to handle and maneuvers than the bigger tillers, especially for beds and locations close to the house.

 

Thank you for all the ideas. Especially thinking of where to dump all the clay and rocks we dig out......... hadn't thought about that one.

Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we can get this done in a few weeks.

 

As a HOA Board Member I have to say this:


Dumping of soil or rocks in any common area on Broadlands or on neighboring properties IS ILLEGAL. On Broadlands common areas this is covered by the covenants which you agreed to abide by when you signed for your house. Outside of Broadlands this is covered by county and state trespassing laws.

If you have woods on your property, you are perfectly legal to transfer such rock and soil there. As one property owner I know is doing, they are building small, dry stack walls along their property line to let their children know where they can and can't play in their backyard.

However, HOA covanents and (I believe) county laws also apply in this case, you cannot change the grade of your property so that it causes issues with your neighbor's drainage.



Neil Z.
Resident since 1999

 

klewis, I've got three words for you: cover...of...darkness

There are an awful lot of common area "woods" in the Broadlands.

 

That is a heck of a thing to recommend, as stuff dumped in the common areas is not always soil and rocks, and your HOA fees go to clean that mess out.

[:0]

Neil Z.
Resident since 1999

 

Oh, lighten up Francis.

Of course I would never recommend littering. But when I lived in the Broadlands I absolutely dumped dirt, grass and rocks into the woods behind my home in the Courtyards -- there was a swath of heavy underbrush and trees about 40 feet deep between the backyard and the walking/bike trail. I don't think it caused anyone harm, and it certainly won't ever be cleaned up by anyone...

 

Maybe she needed to do that to cover up all the dog s$#% in the common area ... which I have never seen cleaned up by HOA ...

 

Considering that the pet owner is supposed to pick up their own pet's waste, and we provide Mutt Mitts all over the area, the HOA does its bit and is not about to become someone's mother and clean up after them.

However, if you're willing to have your HOA fees be increased to pay for additional staff who will walk around with shovels, we'll add a full time waste disposer to the budget !! [8D]



Neil Z.
Resident since 1999

 

Haa Haa .... that might not be a bad idea ...