How to Build a Flower Bed Border

You've planted your flower bed and now wait for the eye-popping and colorful blooms that are soon to come. However, if you don't have a border then your flower bed may not seem complete. There are several ways to build a flower bed border, with prices ranging from somewhat expensive to free. With a little imagination and time you can have a border that will complement not only your flower bed but also your yard and home.

Things You'll Need

• Bricks
• Flour
• Hand spade
• Sand
• Zip-close bag

Instructions

1. Gather the bricks to be used as a flower bed border. Bricks are not your only option. You can use just about anything to make a border for flowers. Sticks and twigs, rocks, shells, railroad ties or landscape timbers are just a few options. There are also the prefabricated borders that you can buy at your local hardware stores, such as aluminum edging, which will curve to the shape of your flower bed, or metal borders that are pushed into the soil. Most of these materials are free; all you have to do is pick them up and carry them home.

2. Put some flour in a plastic zip-close bag. Either open the zipped part a bit or cut a hole in one corner of the bag. Pour a line of flour alongside the water hose. This will be the outline used to dig the edging after you put the water hose up. Any flour left will wash away the next time it rains.

3. Take the hand spade and dig a 4-inch-deep trench over the flour outline. The width of the trench needs to be about the size of the bricks or whatever material you use for a border. Pick out all sizable rocks or roots from the inside and try to break up any large clods of dirt.

4. Add some sand or crushed rocks to the bottom of the trench. This will help level the bottom out so when you put the bricks in they will be steady. Keeping bricks in the trench will also help them stay in place.

5. Place your bricks in the trench. Their edges should be flush with each other until coming to curves or corners. Pour some sand or crushed rocks around the bricks to make them solid in the trench. Pebbles or marbles can be used instead. The same can be done if using shells, creek rocks or branches and sticks instead of bricks.