Learn how to build your own garden edge with Adbri Masonry’s Miniwall edging block. Jason Hodges will show you how simple the project is and how much of a difference it will make to your garden or backyard.
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One of the easiest things you can do at home to make your gardening and mowing the lawn easy, is putting in a really good garden edge. Now, this here is called miniwall. These guys here with no lobes on the top, are mincaps and together they can really define a space for you.
The best thing about them about the miniwall is because of the way they’re designed have a wide front and a narrow back but they have the same face. So, if you put them next to each other butt up, you can get nice straight lines but if you flip them around you can start to create curves.
What I’ve got here is a couple of stakes that I can run a string line. Just measure off your fence, get the distance the same at both ends and it’s parallel. And then, I like to use a nice bright string line so that you don’t end up tripping over it.
When I set the string line, I’m going to pull it nice and tight, I could mark it out with paint if I wanted to or if I keep it up a little bit higher I can dig underneath it and not worry about cutting through this. And being 800ml I’ve allowed about 200ml for my block and 600ml for the garden bed and that’s plenty of garden bed for a hedge that we want to get to say, two or three metres high.
Now, I’m just working on the footing. The good rule of thumb is you want them twice as wide as the wall that’s going up and that’s going to give us stability in the ground and it also happens to be the width of the wacker. So, I can put down road base, go over the top, compact it and make it nice and strong. Now, we’re going into the ground about 100ml of road base compacted and then over the top a damp mix of sand and cement. Not wet, just damp. So, you can screed it and get it nice and flat and level and when you tap down your first block it sits just in the top of it.
Now, this is probably the most delicate part. You want to start level. If you start level, you will finish level. Now, coming off the bit that I’ve already done, if I go through the sand, cement mix and get my spirit level, level and then once it’s remotely right you can grab your timber float. If there’s any hollows you can fill them in. Tap them down too.
And laying the blocks, well I reckon it’s the easiest part. It’s obviously the most rewarding. The straight ones, well they’re dead easy. You just alternate a small face and a large face and that gives you a nice straight line and then for the curve, the large face on the outside will give you a nice gentle curve. Actually, 21 of them will give you a complete full circle and if you’ve got feature trees it’s great to put one around it. But, all you need to do to make sure you’re starting level and finishing level is grab yourself a little spirit level, have a look down at it. At the moment it’s leaning back. That means, every course that goes up from here will be level and I won’t have to check it. Go along with that string line, might come forward a touch.
And this is the genius of the interlocking block. Move on to the next one. Now, the only two tips here, make sure the base and what you’ve already laid is nice and clean. So, if you’ve got a little hand broom it’s a good start. But, if you’ve got the bottom level it’s as easy as just making sure it’s a stretcher bond which is the same as like a brick house is built on which gives it strength.
And putting the cap on is as simple as breathing. Some liquid nails, I’m using the landscape version here. Just across the front and the back of the lugs. Staggering the joints still. And if you’ve done a good job you can lay them just by tapping your hand.
We’re onto the fun bit. Now, a really good tip here is put a little bit of soil behind your garden hedge, then place everything else. Stand back and have a look, make sure it fits and looks right and then back fill around them. And, what you’re finished with is a great a little job that you can knock up in a weekend but make a huge difference to your place. The plants and the mulch just set it off and when the turf’s in place you’ve got a really defined boundary between the garden bed and the lawn, meaning it’s easier to mow the lawn and easy to keep your plants where they’re meant to be.
You know, if you ask a landscape designer what’s the most important thing to think about when you’re designing your garden, they’ll say it’s the bones. Where the paths go, where the driveway sits. The garden beds. The clothes line. The garbage bins. All the basics that you need to make a garden work for generations. Well, this here ticks a lot of those boxes. It gives this garden definition and makes the lawn easy to look after and it looks a million bucks.
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DIY Garden wall Video – Miniwall® garden how to video