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Landscaping Edge Retainer Advice Needed

  • Last Updated:
  • Oct 4th, 2017 11:30 am
Deal Addict
Sep 14, 2007
1001 posts
386 upvotes
Toronto

Landscaping Edge Retainer Advice Needed

I'm working on my backyard patio. Just dropped triple mix surrounding the yard next to the fence along all sides except the side adjacent the house. In between the soil area, there's going to be river rocks, and then in the middle of all this is a platform with paver slabs (the platform is already built). Before I dump the river rocks between the soil/flower bed along the fence and the platform in the middle, I need to setup the edge retainers.

Is it necessary to install on both sides where the materials meet?
1) Between soil and river rocks - using landscape edge retainer
2) Between river rocks and paver platform - using paver edge retainer

My main concern is that the level of platform is built up high, and the limestone screening underneath the pavers isn't well compacted on the side. Imagine a hill built up into a platform. The top of said platform where the pavers are is well compacted, but the hill side which slopes up isn't well compacted. I'm supposed to hammer the stake spikes of the edge retainer into the subbase layer of limestone screening, but that 6" of built up hill isn't well compacted (not strong enough). If I get 10" spikes, I might manage to get 4" into compacted soil underneath, and 6" through the loose limestone screening. To mitigate this looseness, I can hammer spikes more frequently between each spike. They recommend 1 spike per 3 feet, maybe I can spike 1 spike per foot. Would that work?

Other thing is, I'm told it's not necessary to put a retainer between the soil and river rocks. But I'm thinking, what happens when it rains and the soil becomes muddy and starts seeping into the gaps of the river rocks and becomes an intermingled mess of mud and rocks that will be super hard to separate from each other. Would you guys recommend having that landscape retainer, and how high up should it be? Enough to block the soil from running across but not enough to stick up right?
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