Garden bed installation, planting and mulching in Markham

Most tired garden beds started out fine. A few seasons on, grass has crept in from the lawn, weeds fill every gap and the mulch has faded or washed onto the walkway.

Other yards have no beds at all, just lawn up to the foundation. Garden bed installation covers both: we build new beds and bring old ones back.

The complaints sound a lot alike from yard to yard:

• You can’t tell where the bed ends and the lawn starts anymore.
• You weed it every weekend and it still looks messy.
• The front of the house looks bare, and you’d like planting that isn’t fussy.
• The shrubs came with the house and half of them have died.

Underneath most of those is bare soil, no clear edge and plants that don’t suit the spot. Fix that and the bed gets much easier to live with.

Our weed treatment and garden clean-up project shows one: a bed along a fence that had disappeared under weeds and long grass.

The same six steps apply to a small bed by the front step or a long border along the back fence:

1. We walk the yard with you, look at sun and shade, and agree on the bed shape and roughly what goes in it.
2. We mark out the shape and cut it in. For a new bed the sod comes off; for an old one we pull weeds by the root and dig out the grass that has spread in.
3. We loosen the soil and work in fresh soil or compost where it’s thin, heavy clay or full of old roots.
4. Plants go in at the right depth and spacing, with room to fill in over two or three years without crowding.
5. We cut a clean edge against the lawn, or put in a border for a firmer line. On our sod, edging and mulch project that meant a curved interlock edge, and our guide to garden bed edging compares cut, plastic, steel and interlock edges.
6. Mulch goes down at an even depth, pulled back from stems and trunks. We water everything in and take the debris away.

If your beds only need tidying, we skip the planting and do the weeding, edging and mulch. That often fits into a spring or fall cleanup.

Size and how much has to come out first move the price most. Lifting sod or digging out old shrubs and their roots takes longer than weeding a bed that’s already there.

Plants are the next big part. Larger shrubs cost more than small pots that take a season or two to fill in, and a stone or interlock border costs more than a simple cut edge.

Access matters too: a front bed by the driveway is quicker than a backyard bed everything has to be wheeled to. We give a free quote after we’ve seen the space, so you know the cost before anything starts.

Spring and early fall. In spring we start once the ground has thawed and dried enough to work, and Landscape Ontario gives May 24 as the traditional start of safe planting for most annuals in southern Ontario.

Fall suits trees and shrubs. Landscape Ontario’s fall gardening checklist says to plant them at least six weeks before frost and keep watering until the ground freezes.

Mulching and bed cleanups can happen any time the ground isn’t frozen.

Water deeply during dry spells instead of a light sprinkle every day. Landscape Ontario advises the same, because it gets roots growing down. Pull weeds while they’re small, and keep the mulch at the right depth:

Scroll sideways to see the whole table.

Shrubs need trimming at the right time for each plant. Our guide on when to trim hedges and shrubs in Ontario covers that, or we can take it on with hedge and bush trimming.

Mulching one small bed is a fine weekend job. New beds are where hiring help pays off: lifting sod, wheeling soil and mulch, digging dozens of holes and hauling the debris away.

If you want something that needs little upkeep, start with our guide to low-maintenance garden beds.

We work across Markham and nearby, including Richmond Hill, Stouffville and Thornhill.

The quickest way to start is to text a few photos of the beds to (437) 684-2535 with your street or postal code. We’ll arrange a visit and give you a free quote.

• Weeds and grass have taken over and you can't see where the bed ends
• Bare soil that cracks in summer and turns to mud after rain
• Shrubs that have outgrown the spot or died off in patches
• Old mulch that has faded grey or washed onto the walkway
• A front yard that's all lawn and you'd like some planting by the house
• No crisp line between the grass and the bed