How Much You Can Expect To Spend On A Brick Paver Garden Bed Border

Garden edging is as practical as it is visually pleasing. By adding borders around your garden beds, you prevent weeds in your yard and create a visual break between different landscaping components. In particular, brick pavers afford an easy DIY way to elevate your yard. Brick is an excellent edging material because it offers a permanent solution that requires little effort on your part to maintain, while also adding a great deal of visual interest to the landscape design. On the downside, brick pavers cost a bit more than traditional edging (which involves simply digging a trench). But are the costs so prohibitive that you should forgo this option, and edge your garden beds with a shovel and elbow grease instead?

Not at all. In fact, brick pavers are among the least expensive edging materials when compared against granite, concrete, stone or wood. The cost of a standard-sized, 4 by 8 inch brick paver is under $1 — typically sitting around 70 cents. What's more, edging a garden bed with bricks doesn't require gravel. That's because unlike a driveway or patio, edging does not need a granular base for the pavers. That said, you will need to use landscaping fabric to keep weeds at bay, and jointing sand to secure the pavers in place. Below, we'll use a couple of examples to calculate how much you'd spend on materials for your brick paver garden bed borders.

The first step in calculating your paver costs is to determine how many pavers you'll need. This number hinges on the type of course you prefer. If opting for a soldier course, you'll lay the pavers long side-to-long. In this case, measure the total length of the intended borders. Your initial measurement will be in feet, but you must convert it to inches. Let's say the full length of the edging adds up to 100 feet; multiply 100 by 12, and you get 1,200 inches. Now, divide this length by the paver's short side. Assuming you're going with a 4-by-8 inch brick paver, divide 1,200 by 4 and end up with 300. That's the quantity of brick pavers you need, but to account for inadvertent breakage, add 10% to this quantity, and you'll arrive at 330. Assuming the pavers you've chosen cost 70 cents each, multiple 330 by 0.7, and you get 231 — that's $231 you'll pay for the pavers.

Now, if you want to lay the pavers short side-to-short in a runner course, divide the length of edging by the brick pavers' long side dimensions. Assuming we have a total length of 100 feet, multiply 100 by 12 to get 1,200 Then, divide 1,200 by 8, and you end up with 150 pavers. Now, add 10 percent for waste and you're left with a total paver count of 165. Finally, multiply 165 by the 0.7, and you get a total paver cost of $115.50.

Regardless of the course type, you need landscaping fabric and jointing sand. Landscaping fabric costs around $15 for a 50-foot roll that measures 3 feet wide, so you'll pay $30 for 100 feet of edging. Meanwhile, a 40-pound bag of polymeric sand should be more than enough for 100 feet of edging, and will set you back another $30.