Do It Yourself: Brick Landscape Borders

Set six to eight bricks on the ground and experiment with various layout patterns for your border. Keep in mind how wide you want the border to be as you work with side by side, staggered, lattice or zigzag pattern ideas. Measure the width of the bricks once you select a pattern.

Remove the grass layer along the border area the width measured in Step 1 using a shovel. If the border curves, be sure the width remains the same through the curve. Dig the soil 6 inches deep to make a ditch.

Add 12 inches to the width or your border and cut lengths of landscape fabric to this width. Spread a piece of fabric over the inside of the ditch starting along one end of the border. Place a second piece of fabric over the end 4 inches of the first piece and continue to place fabric lengths overlapped at the ends until the ditch is lined.

Fill the ditch with sand 4 inches deep. Smooth the sand as level as possible with the head of your shovel or a brick. Place bricks over the sand in your pattern starting along one end and working toward the other. Tap the bricks as you place them both backward toward the one set before it, and then downward into the sand to level it. Continue until the bricks fill the border.

Spread a coating of sand over the surface of the bricks. Sweep the loose sand between the bricks with a broom. Spray over the bricks with a light mist of water to settle the sand. Repeat the process of adding sand, sweeping it and spraying over it twice more over the next two weeks to continue to settle the sand.