Well folks the time has come…the time to say goodbye forever to LAVA ROCKS! I don’t know what I have against them, but they had to go. We have put lots of time and money into renovating the inside of our house so it was time to make the outside match. We have this great big cement patio with a little side area that was filled with lava rocks and nothing else. What purpose did that serve for me? Nothing but an eye sore. We debated what to put there that would be useful and nice to look at, and also not break the bank. A few of our family members had suggested doing some fruit/vegetables closer to home base. We have a huge squared out garden area in the field that we some day hope to fence in and make a massive garden, but for now, some raised cedar planter beds right next to the house was a perfect idea. Cost effective, useful, and beautiful to stare out the kitchen window at.
Lucky for me, Reid is very talented at building exactly what I envision! I started imagining 4 cedar beds surrounded by pebble rocks and stepping stones, covered by string lights up above. The beautiful antique arbor and grey bricks around the perimeter were just a bonus!
First things first, we had to shovel out a metric butt ton of lava rocks. There was already weed paper beneath it so that saved us a step. Lava rocks are heavy…and annoying. We also got rid of the old red bricks surrounding the area. Once we disposed of this, Reid used “moon dust” which is essentially super fine gravel for landscaping. We got grey bricks to border the area. Since the ground was slightly uneven he used moondust to level them out and get them to be more stable…always good for the longevity of a project as well!
Reid started building the raised cedar planter beds in each of their spots so we wouldn’t have to move them in place later. We decided to build 3′ x 6′ instead of 4′ x 8′ so we could add one more planter box in the area. I would rather have them a little smaller to be able to fit one more box in that area, 4 just seemed like the right amount for planting things, and also appealing to the eye. The height of them is a touch over 1′. We originally planned on 2′ but once we saw one built it was just a bit too tall for what we wanted. Once the frame was built, Reid added a decorative “lip” around the top to give it more curb appeal. (See below for all materials needed)
Next we went to the local landscaping/topsoil place and filled up the bed of our truck with drain rocks. We spent a few more hours shoveling drain rocks out of the truck into the planter boxes. We filled about the bottom half with drain rocks and then placed weed paper over and stapled it to the inside of the box. Drain rocks are great to take up space in the bottom and also allow for good drainage of the soil (hence the name..drain rocks). I did some research on how much topsoil is appropriate for planter boxes and ultimately we decided on about 12″. The minimum it should be is 8″. I wanted to allow for root growth since i do plan on using them to plant lots of produce come spring time.
Next step was going back to our local shop and getting topsoil..lots and lots of top soil. We ended up with roughly 1 yard of soil per box. We spent a little more and got the topsoil with lots of good minerals (aka manure). Plants need it!!!
Once we finished filling the boxes it was time to landscape around the area. We went back to the landscape shop and got pebble rocks to fill the area around the boxes, this surprisingly only took one truck load…for bed size reference, we have an F150. After we got all the pebble rocks down we went to get some modern looking stepping stones. I ended up getting 12 (12×12) concrete stepping stones as walkways through the beds. This helps keeps the pebble rocks looking a little neater and a clear walking path. When we were picking up our stepping stones from the landscaping shop (for those locals, we always go to Malliards, they are a great family owned business) we ended up running into this amazing antique “patina” arbor. Reid had been talking about building a large cedar arbor to enter into the garden but we ended up not being able to build it because of the septic lines running beneath where we would need to dig down and mount the 4x4s for the structure. We both saw this arbor and fell in love, it has the perfect rustic farm look to add some character to the garden. The arbor is iron and pretty heavy on its own, but we mounted the legs in some cement to really make sure it stays sturdy through the weather. We then spent a day weeding disgusting thistles and cutting down old rotting hedges then mulched over the entire area. Mulch is great for not only curb appeal but also keeping weeds away!
The last thing we did in this area was hang our string lights. I have been accumulating boxes of the LED lights from Costco for a while now and knew the final touch to our backyard oasis were these beauties. Should I do a separate post on string lights? That’s a whole speech on its own… YIKES.
Thanks for following along on our renovation journey, its been a long one, but we love seeing our dream home come together day by day! See below for the list of materials needed for cedar planter beds.
Materials Needed (Per Bed):
- 9 – 6ft cedar fence boards
- 1 – 10ft cedar 2×4
- 2 – 10ft 1inch cedar decking board
- 70 – 2 inch exterior screws/deck screws
Sincerely,
The Smith’s
(Follow along on my instagram @kristinnicholesmith #smithfamilyfarm and #sincerelythesmiths for daily stories and posts)
That looks fantastic!!!! Peaceful. Hugs