Landscaping Blocks – An Overlooked Landscaping Material For Your Backyard

Landscaping your backyard with landscaping blocks can be a great project for your family to enjoy, and the results will have you enjoying the great outdoors and your beautiful design. You’ll probably want to add some plants or shrubs, embellish natural features, and downplay areas of your yard that aren’t’ the best, so you need to make sure that you’re using the right materials for your landscaping project.

An overlooked material when designing your outdoor project is landscaping blocks, which be a useful and attractive addition to your backyard. You can turn plain blocks into decorative retaining walls, raised flower beds or wandering pathways.

There isn’t a big range of options for landscaping blocks, so no one will suffer from option paralysis and not know which specific color, shape or size is right for them. While landscaping blocks can be different shapes and sizes, the basics are pretty much the same – interlocking or plain.

Both kinds of landscaping blocks require a prepared foundation by creating a base for the blocks that is level. You may want to lay down a waterproof membrane to help with water drainage, especially in the case of a large retaining wall on a slope. Having nowhere for your water to go means it’ll collect in places that can destroy your hard work.

Using Blocks for Walls

You can use landscaping blocks to create attractive retaining walls or terraces, which can level out your backyard or provide raised beds for plants and flowers. Setting down your first row of landscaping blocks needs to be done carefully. The blocks need to be level and you’ll need to check each one to avoid later problems. Using sand or packing gravel is the best choice for making small adjustments to ensure your landscaping blocks are as flat as you can possibly get them.

Laying down all other rows needs to be done just as carefully though, so you’d better keep that level handy. Interlocking blocks will be somewhat easier to lay down, by setting over the row below and locking them in. If you were looking to build a curved wall, you’ll need to use plain, not interlocking, blocks and you’ll just need to know which angle to set your landscaping blocks at to get the right shape you’re looking for.

All it takes to build a small, decorative wall or a more important retaining wall or terrace is some patience and a good eye, as all there is to using landscaping blocks is laying down, compacting and adding filler, even when you’re only using them to line the floor of a pathway or sidewalk. There are a range of types of stone, from pretty burnt-umber brick to solid, serviceable cement block, and landscaping blocks come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes.

The colors available in the selection include pale pinks, dark and light grays, or sandy beiges and yellows, colors that can blend into the greens and browns of your outdoors attractively. Landscaping blocks last practically forever, as opposed to lumber four by fours or railroad ties and can help easily solve many problems due to erosion without breaking your budget.