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Landscaping Front Yard Part 2

Dave-1
Home Improvement Guru

Landscaping Front Yard Part 2

This is part two of landscaping the front yard, the bed of the path had been put into place with compacted clay, the culvert and area for a small holding pond had been set up.( Culvert for stormwater ) I was lucky enough to keep unearthing more wriggly pavers as I dismantled the old patio area. These then went into the new pathway.

The pathway from the steps up to the T intersection has a small dip in it. the dip corresponds to the waterline mark for the figtree area overfilling and then should go across the path. Admittedly I have put a berm on the low side but if I change it around and knowing me nothing is permanant :smile: The Berms may get changed out to more level garden areas one day. At the moment they look a little wintererd scraggy.

 

Materials

Clay

8mm gravel

Reused Squiggly pavers

Concrete garden edging straight

Reused concrete pavers

Tools

Shovel

Gorrilla 4 wheel trolley

Tamp Bar

Mallet

Cold chisel

Hammer

Screwdriver solid shaft.

 

Steps

Step 1

It was time to remove the old path so I could recover pavers and use them in the new pathway. I was surprised how I kept digging them up.

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The old path was a sandy styled concrete, very crumbly and not particulary deep. I sorted the style of rocks/rubble and sandstone as I went so as to making filling gabion baskets easier.

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Sandstone always looks beautiful. It really keeps the colours for years. (Am about to water blast some from 4 years ago and will see if they come back as new)

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This was the bit I had been "leaving behind" as I knew it would be a pain breaking apart.

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So much concrete mortar over vertically stacked pavers. It came apart easily after all.

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The new pathway, with compacted clay sloped. I was stressing it may feel too steep but ended up being an easy walk.

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Where you can see the pile of broken concrete is where a gabion wall will go, I am a big believer in not moving things multiple times if not needed (hence the piles of rocks all over the place).

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Graded and leveled.

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Time for gravel to go down. It was excess gravel so I had to use it or get rid if it. Previously I have laid pavers direct on clay and they dont more or sink so I wasnt worried about that if it happened.

Step 2

The steps you can see are existing ones. One day they are planed to be shifted towards me to allow access to the area next to the large gabion wall.

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I knew it would be hard to form a curve from the pavers but thought why not try. I really didnt want to cut them mainly as it would reduce their future usefulness.

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I am glad I dont like perfect lines :smile:

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Setting the pavers went far easier then I expected.

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Getting the curve so it looked right and making it fit to the compacted clay was interesting tho.

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I used a mallet and a strong screwdriver to adjust the location and a mallet to level the pavers as I worked up the hill.

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Insert swear word as my curve was NOT working out.

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Re-jigged, took all of 15mins and back on track.

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With the pavers I wanted to make sure I had a gap as there was no way I wanted to slip over after all the rain we had in 2022. Plus it gave me enough wiggle room to slow curve the path.

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It is comming along nicely. And is so much nicer to walk along. 

 

Step 3

Now comes the step of feathering in the crossroads and then feathering in different styles of pavers. I like playing Tetris but this was a little more stressful...

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Once the clay had dried out it was a really nice surface to work with. The gravel helped level out any divets or unevenness.

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So many loads of gravel and pavers back and fourth. Worth it but wow.

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I used the lightweight concrete blocks for temp edging. As I knew the gabion wall will go in where they are sitting eventually.

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Sorting out the height I want the pavers to be at to align with with the steps. Then tamping the clay to compact it some more. 

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You can see in the distance the pathway using recovered concrete square pavers. I will extend this down as far as I can, tho do not have as many as I would like left.

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If you look closely you will notice that the ground not only slopes downwards but also high right to low left. This is to keep any surface water that comes down the path on the left and not cut across where I walk. The gravel will level the slope so in reality the pavers will never have water running over them (They havnt in the year to date)

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Tamping away. There is a dip in the clay in the middle. This is to allow water that fills up the garden bed to the left to overflow if needed across to the lower garden bed. The gravel will also cover the dip.

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Must admit I was glad I had the excess gravel as I ended up using it all!

Step 4

It felt really good to finally get pavers back at the foot of the steps. The white concrete blocks are only temporary and work well to keep shape.

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I figure to stagger the wiggly pavers to make the curves needed.

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Feathering in the large square concrete pavers and wiggly pavers plus making the path work. I was only going to use the large square pavers until I lay my hands on more squiggly pavers but have really grown to like them. 

36 03-08-2022.jpg

Just temporay stepping stones as the clay would still get soft with the amount of rain we were having.

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Cleaning up the wiggly pavers from concrete mortar. A cold Chisel and hammer were my best friends at this point.

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Prepped for the next days work.

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The pathway being extended down past the culvert.

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Using the area set aside for the future holding pond for temp rock holding instead. (rocks to go into the back of gabion walls)

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I hadnt really though of how much the yard slopes. But still it works especially with the berms/garden beds in place.

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Installing the T intersection.

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With the path becoming set I needed to extend the gutter line. So compacted clay to make a base yet again plus another trip to Bunnings of course!.

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The end of the path is in sight!

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Feathering in between the two types of pavers

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Pretty much joined.

 

Step 5

Almost done, one last section down the other side of the culvert to do.

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Will have to put edging in along the pavers to stop them traveling outwards so easily.

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I dug down into the lawn to give a flat area to acess the lawn to the left and feather it in to the slope going down.

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The gravel was used up... I was so surprised it went so far.

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All done for now as I have run out of pavers! These were all reclaimed pavers that I had dug out from different sections of the yard and the patio area. 

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I used 50mm recyled plastic edging to hold the path in place, well hold the gravel so it dosnt sieve out.  I then swept loose gravel over the top to lock the pavers in place. Nothing has shifted in a years worth of use. 

EricL
Bunnings Team Member
Bunnings Team Member

Re: Landscaping Front Yard Part 2

Hi @Dave-1 

 

Thank you very much for the update, your path is looking fantastic. I feel your frustration, creating a curve with interlocking pavers is not a fun activity. I built a curved paved path with my relatives a few years ago. It's difficult enough with ordinary pavers but using interlocking ones must have been quite a challenge.

 

Looking forward to the next update.

 

Eric

 

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mich1972
Kind of a Big Deal

Re: Landscaping Front Yard Part 2

That pathway looks damn good Dave !!!!!! 😃

Dave-1
Home Improvement Guru

Re: Landscaping Front Yard Part 2

@EricL and @mich1972 

Its still rocking :smile:

 

Dave

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