A question for Steven on building a berm.

16 years ago

Steven,

Would you be willing to give me some more details on your berm-building project? Dh and I are seriously thinking of building a couple into our side yard. We are on a large, pie-shaped piece of property and we want them to serve as privacy barriers along with the "less grass is more" philosophy. I have the pictures of your project clipped and have referred to them several times in our planning process. I can see that you and Brian rolled up your shirtsleeves and did some serious digging but we are thinking of trying the lasagna method or something similar. We have a big pile of compost to use but I'm still concerned that this may not be enough to create the berm. Did you simply dig up the pathways and toss it in the area where you wanted your berm, did you have more topsoil brought in? The area we are considering already has some natural slope to either side and the sloped areas are where we plan to position the berms. There is a point in the middle where we have a low spot and we plan to put river rock there and make it a pathway. I'll try to get out a take a pic. of the area and post it over on the galler side. Whatever info. you can provide about your own project will be great! Obviously, our land is different than yours but it's the basics I'm looking for here.

TIA,

Stephanie

Comments (3)

amare_al_giardino
Original Author
16 years ago
so sorry, didn't mean to be rude, would love to have anyone else's input as well. Just directed at Steven since he had posted pics of his own berm project.

Smiles,
Stephanie
Steveningen
16 years ago
Hi Stephanie! I meant to respond last night, but by the time I started, I was so wiped out I scrapped it and went on to bed. After looking at your pix over in the Gallery, your plans for building a berm are excellent and well-thought out. Since ours was such a relatively small berm, it's a little difficult to compare the two projects. Yes, we used all the soil that we dug for the paths (about 5" in depth). To that, we added about 12 cubic feet of amendments. But keep in mind, our soil is rather heavy clay and requires lots of amending.

I first tilled the berm area with my Mantis to the depth of about 10". Then we started digging the paths and dumping the soil over that. As the berm got taller, I would go back with the mantis and periodically till in more compost and composted manure until we got it to the heigth and shape we wanted. Once the berm was the size we wanted, we both just sort of walked all over it to compact it a bit. Not much, just enough to keep it in place. We gave it a couple of days to settle, watering twice daily. I then planted it up and Brian followed with the irrigation system. You may not need water delivery at all since you get summer rain. That's really all there was to it. We still need to go back and add the finished paths. At that time, I'll put in some sort of edging to keep the berm from washing onto the paths during the winter rains.

I can't wait to see your project completed. I think it's going to be fantastic!

Steven
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amare_al_giardino
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks Steven,
I'm so relieved you could halfway figure out what the heck I was talking about from my description! It would be so great if we could just snap our fingers and appear in each other's yards to explain,get advice, ooohh and aaahhh, etc. wouldn't it??!!
So you did till it. Yes, we are dealing with a very sandy soil actually with just a bit of clay here and there. I'm thinking for the planting beds part of our project, we'll stick with the cardboard/compost method but with the berms, we may have to actually do the digging to achieve the height we want without having to purchase a ton of topsoil. Time will tell. Still in the thinking and planning phase but that's half the fun of a project after all!
Thanks again for your info. I'm clipping and adding it to the collection for future reference.
Stephanie