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Landscaping blocks

If you have decided to decorate your landscape all by your own that you will probably do some kind of building raised planting beds and retaining walls at first. A lot of people use railroad ties or treated landscape timbers for this type of landscaping. But these things have a slight drawback - you really have to install them properly, otherwise you will end up with rot problems. For such "do-it-yourselfers" like you interlocking concrete landscaping blocks will work well. There are a not so many different brands of blocks on the market and they all work on the same principles: at first you should prepare the foundation, then put the first row of blocks and after that install the remaining rows.

I think that you will agree with me that preparing the proper foundation for the wall made of landscaping blocks is the hardest part of installing landscaping blocks process. First of all you have to make sure that you won't disturb the soil (this is called skimming). Than you have to make the base for the blocks leveled enough. For really large retaining walls on a large hillside, water drainage is a great problem, because it flows down the hill and starts eating away at the fill behind the retaining walls. In order to eliminate such problem you have to lay a moisture membrane behind the wall to catch the water. This must be done along with putting some drain tile to collect the water and drain it away.

Setting up your first row of landscaping blocks you are establishing the shape of the whole project. There is no need to tell you that you must try to get it right. Check every block for level as you set it down. For minor adjustments you may use small amount of sand to raise the blocks. You must make sure that the outside block edges touch one another. The important thing is a backfill. For small projects you can use only dirt, but for larger ones you should use crushed stones or river rocks. Clean and mow the tops of each row before moving on to the next one.

When setting second row of landscaping blocks remember that the row above needs to be locked to the row below it. That is the main rule. When the second row of landscaping blocks is set you follow the same procedure as you have done before: fill the blocks, compact the fill, mow the tops, and put on the next row. And this repeats all the way up the wall until it is completely finished.

Deciding whether it worth it or not to use landscaping blocks remember that blocks were quarried over the past 135 years and offer an excellent landscaping solution for you and your garden. Among its uses are water features, large retaining walls, and diving platforms for swimming pools. They are quite helpful when you have erosion problems or perhaps you want to maximize usable landscaping space by terracing.