Creating a Beautiful Lawn Bed

by Kelly Richardson
All About Lawns Columnist

• Plan the Design. Your first job should be to sketch out a couple of different design for your lawn bed on paper. Base your design on the shape and slope of your lawn. Consider trees and shrubbery in the plan as they are an important part of the lawn landscape.
• Dig the Base. Using a sharp-nosed shovel, begin digging out the shape of your lawn bed. Dig at least 2 inches below the surface of the ground in order to remove all of the grass and roots from the area. Keep the diggings and add them to a compost pile.
• Lay the Plastic. One of the major mistakes homeowners make when creating a lawn bed is that they fail to cover the base of the bed with a plastic lining. Grass will grow again inside of your lawn bed and make it look messy. You can get bed lining at any hardware store.
• Cover the Lining. There are a variety of materials that you can use in your lawn bed. The most popular is pine bark. Pine bark lawn beds are durable and absorb water well. If you want to grow flora or fauna in your lawn bed, use some sort of potting soil mix.
• Maintenance. Your new lawn bed won't need much after-care other than the occasional weeding. If you are growing in your lawn bed, you will need to follow the maintenance schedule for the particular organic you have growing.