Steve Snedeker’s Landscaping and Gardening Blog

After 5 days, this is what we came up with!  It is unwashed and unsealed as yet but we were onto bigger and better things when this was taken.  Planting and other finishing aspects will happen soon.

Here’s the look with sand over the top of our work.  The sand also provides a sort of “lubricant” for the plate tamper we use to compact with. It can, at times, abrade the bricks, making some scuff marks with its repeated hammering with a steel plate hitting bricks, so we always use a this layer of sand to cushion it, while the sand gets distributed between the cracks.

The edges on both sides are cut in place and we are ready to add sand for the “grouting” purposes, then compacting, yet again. This last compaction is less for structural purposes than for aesthetic ones.  Pavers can have small imperfections in depth and whatnot, plus there may have been one or two areas where our screeding was not exact. By compacting, we not only shake the sand into locking position, holding further the pavers in place, but we also address any imperfections in grade.

As you can see, we reached a completion level on one side of things.  We cut to fit, install a “soldier course” of perpendicular pavers in a row.  This adds to the attractiveness and also supplies larger pavers for the edge, resulting in a more stable overall surface. 

We have “screeded” the sand layer, making it perfectly level and are now adding the bricks themselves.  We begin in the middle on this project basically because we can.  It begins with a super straight line of pavers, operating off a string line, and spreads from a perfect point of departure.  Following this, we will begin “cutting in” the curves on the outside.

We have excavated and are now replacing the excavated material with base materials.  We will compact the “base”, then add an inch of sand, then the pavers.  This is always the most important part of the project, in my opinion.  We always strive for a seriously compacted base, just as highway makers are made to.  It keeps later sinking or other grade-related problems to a minimum.