An Easy & Inexpensive solution to clean up your side yard for only $30.00

  brick pattern

 Finished, no more weeds

 completed with drainage area

We have an area in our side yard that looks very messy and always full of weeds.  It is a very narrow piece of dirt . This was originally plan for a border of ground cover or flower beds.  Due to lack of sun and poor irrigation, nothing seem to survive there except weeds and lots of weeds especially after the rain. My plan was to clean up this area with minimum of labor and cost. 

1. Cleaned out the dirt area and dug a 2-1/2 inch deep area along side of the adjacent retaining wall. Made sure that it is sloping toward the retaining wall so the water will drain away from the house.  Then smooth and spread sand  out so that it is about half an inch thick.
2. In order for me to recycle a few of my previously left over old brick tiles (16" X 16" X 2") ,I designed the pattern as shown to minimize the use of too many new bricks. Leaving 1/4 inch gap between every brick and tile.
3. There is a perforated drainage pipe under neath near the retaining wall.   I could not completely cover the entire area with cement. I made provision for water to drain by filling the end corners with pea gravel. 
4. Now it is ready for the mortar to be spread over  the bricks. Carefully sweeping the mortar into the cracks between the bricks without  stirring up the mortar dust.
5. Using a soft spray from the hose, slowly spray the entire area until they are fully soaked and set.
6. Total time spent: 4 hours. Total cost: under $30.00. Bricks at 0.25 each.

Where I got all the materials:

1. Bricks: Home Depot ($0.25 per brick) I bought 80 bricks
2. Mortar and concrete: Home Depot less than $5.00 per 60 lb. I used 1 bag of mortar
3. Construction grade sand: Tricity Rockeries $2.50 per 50lb. I used 1-1/2 bag of sand
4. Pea gravel: Tri-City Rockeries $ 3.00 for 50 lbs. I used 1/4 bags of pea gravels.