Kill and Cover- how to create large new bed areas in a lawn.

David — Thu, 22 Mar 2018 03:03:52 +0000

“Kill and Cover”- a shortcut for creating new beds in an area with lawn

Many people ask us to cut our huge areas of sod when they are creating new bed areas. Unless you are planning to have plain soil beds and do active flower planting in the areas, there is NO NEED to remove the sod. This is a method used for creating new beds in an existing lawn. It saves all the tedious work and EXPENSE of cutting out big areas of sod and hauling all that material away only to fill up the space with rock or mulch anyway. The old turf left underneath won’t hurt anything. It will rot away to nothing before long. Why haul all that material away, just to haul more material in to fill the hole?

1) Use your hose to lay out the line.

2) Cut just one swath with the half moon edger or with a sod cutter.

3) Spray all the grass behind the curb with “Roundup” to kill the lawn. Click HERE for a link on the pragmatic use of roundup in your yard or HERE for an article on theoretical and potential dangers of roundup and click HERE for alternatives to roundup

4) Plant your shrubs

5) Install fabric

6) Install rocks/ mulch, keeping it back 18″ from the prepped line

7) Call us to come by and install the curb.

8) Finish as needed

On this job, we are ready to install the curb. They will kill and cover the sod afterwards.

Here the homeowner prepped by killing then running a rented sod cutter. We could just as well do the single strip of sod cutting just before laying the curb

Flatten new topsoil- how to do it.

David — Mon, 27 Feb 2017 03:39:00 +0000

When you have a new final grade installed by professionals, they will flatten the ground. But sometimes things have settled or a lot of time has passed and things are looking rough. Sometimes it may be necessary to use a powered rototiller to break up the ground and completely rework it. Some people then attempt to use a rake for flattening the ground. NO! That’s way too hard. We have seen where people try to use a garden rake, but even a landscape rake is too small to properly flatten topsoil. after the garden rake, use the pallet method you see in the video!

this works to help spread the soil, but NOT to flatten it. See how bumpy it is?

See this tube video How to flatten ground video

or this one here

A wooden ladder, a steel beam, a heavy post. the best is when there is more than one edge being dragged over the surface. the first one knocks down the bumps, and the second one evens it out. You can use a quad or riding mower or whatever machine you have to make the job easier.

See other information of preparing your place for curb installation here.

prep – Best Curb and Curbify Inc.

Kill and Cover- how to create large new bed areas in a lawn.

“Kill and Cover”- a shortcut for creating new beds in an area with lawn

Flatten new topsoil- how to do it.