Many of you have certainly heard of the beautiful Butchart Gardens in Victoria B.C. As you can imagine, when I visit a place like that I want to see more than just the flowers. So, David Clarke gave me a tour of the hidden side of the gardens: where their water comes from. What may surprise yo...
Andy caught our camera in a store and asked about the proper preparation for a flagstone walkway.I always joke that patios and walkways are for the Southern US and decks are for the Northern US and Canada, simply because dealing with water and ice always complicates anything we try to do down on ...
Pouring concrete and have a bit left over? Or do you have half a sack of concrete mix leftover that will probably go hard through humidity before you get around to using it?Getting rid of this stuff can be a problem, so turn it into part of your landscaping.Judy suggests simply taking a large bu...
David Klutt of Landscapes by D.K. Enterprises in Toronto showed us the critical steps for a good job of interlocking walkway bricks:At least 8 inches of excavation:3/4 inch crush run gravel (mix of 3/4 right down to dust to compact well), 3 inches then compacted then 3 inches then compacted;2 in...
To get some adhesion on the top of ice you can of course use sand, but cat litter and fireplace ashes work as well.Of the commercial de-icers, the finer power like ones will tend to go down slowly and do better at thinning the ice. The more rock style will cut their way down to the bottom quic...
Tom wants to know how to make a curved walkway with rectangular pavers.You can simply fan out rectangular blocks, filling in the space with sand. The catch is that you cannot leave too large a space. The shorter the blocks, the easier it is to make the curve because larger blocks create larger s...
Connect to your favourite weather forecaster and look for the following conditions:
Category: Concrete Product: All site mixed or delivered concrete
Temperature Limitations: Use above +2 C (+35 F)
Rain Limitations: No rain until surface is firm -- several hours
Wind Limitations: n/a
...
Don in Winnipeg wanted to make a wooden walkway. He wanted to fan the boards out at the 90 degree corner, but couldn't figure out how to calculate the angle to cut the boards to make them fit.
The first important reflection was that the center point of this fanning out should not be right in the...