Things You'll Need:
- pointed full-length shovel
- waist-high edging spade
- steel rake
- wheelbarrow
- work gloves
- old clothes
- bags of specially prepared bark or mulch mixture
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Step 1
Score the entire outside perimeter of the bed of earth that surrounds your shrubs with a three-foot-high spade. Do this at the point where the earthen bed meets the field of grass that makes up your lawn. Make sure you cut the grass sod cleanly with the spade to form a continuous circle around the clump of shrubs.
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Step 2
Remove all loose pieces of sod after they are dislodged by the spade and place them in your wheelbarrow. You might want to shake loose any soil that remains clinging to the pieces of sod, and return the soil to a place underneath the group of plants. If you are going to replant the sod in another location, you should do so immediately.
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Step 3
Remove all loose debris from the surface of the bed with a steel rake, and aerate the soil with the tip of the pointed shovel. Then rake the soil until it is smooth.
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Step 4
Add a layer of mulch to the earthen bed after it has been smoothed over with the rake. Use the pointed shovel to move the mulch. Popular ingredients for mulch include dried peat moss, pine needles or chipped pieces of brick. Bring the layer of natural covering right up to the edge of the grass sod. If you like, you can use a line of bricks or round rocks to accent the circular edge, where the grass sod meets the earthen bed.
