​Front Yard Flair

Planting beds add drama and function to a lovely Tudor-style home in Minneapolis. The homeowners — an active, busy couple — wanted to improve their bland front yard with landscaping, especially the large triangular patch of sloped grass directly in front of the home. A little research clinched their decision to go for raised beds. 

The couple scoured stores for just the right stone to complement the home and its existing stonework and brought home many samples. While the do-it-yourselfers (DIYers) hadn’t tackled an outdoor project of this scope before, they successfully completed the installation of two planters made with the Natural Impressions® Flagstone retaining wall system. “The blocks were the perfect match. We really liked the variation in the stone itself,” the homeowners say.

They started with the large planter. “It was a challenge to figure out how to work with the slope but once we started digging, it made a lot more sense. Another challenge was getting the sand base perfectly level so we could start the first layer of blocks; but once those went in, it got easier,” the homeowner explains. Installation of the small planter, sited on a level area, took less than a weekend. 

Armed with “her brains and his brawn,” the couple worked on the project for about a month of weekends. They read how-to articles and greatly credit the product brochure, available at the store and developed by Anchor, which helped them “do the math.” The pamphlet prompted them with questions to make the right calculations that ultimately determined supply quantities they needed. “At first, we were skeptical about the large amount of backfill it estimated, but given the slope we had, it turned out to be very accurate.”

We’re very happy with the result. Often when we’re outside, people stop and tell us how much they like it.