Paver stone walkways, patios and driveways add a polished look to casual and formal landscaping layouts. Pavers are durable enough to hold up to heavy foot and vehicle traffic. While just an aesthetic component, edge pavers installed along the outside edges of a paver surface help to frame the dependence to get a more professional look. Use a different paver material than the interior of the paver surface, like edging a stone walk using bricks, or even use the identical material and simply set the edge pavers in a different direction than the remaining pavers.

Measure the pavers to determine the width necessary for a trench to install the pavers. Should you utilize brick pavers, the bricks look best as edge pavers when you put them long sides together, with the short sides involving the paver surface and facing outside.

Dig a trench across the outside edges of the paver patio, walkway or drive that is about twice as wide as the edge pavers and as deep as the base material below the remaining pavers. Use a half-moon edger to cut the edge and a spade to remove the dirt. If the paved surface is a completely new installation, then only factor the width of the pavers to the plan and excavate the entire area to the exact same depth, about 7 inches deep in addition to the height of the pavers.

Add 6 inches of 3/4-minus gravel or crushed rock to the trench, adding 3 inches at a time and pack it tightly with your feet or the blunt end of a bar. Hand tampers and plate compactors are used commonly to pack the gravel base, but also the trench for edge pavers is too narrow to adapt these tools.

Spread a 1-inch layer of sand evenly over the compacted gravel base layer. Put a torpedo level over the sand to check for flat, then remove or add sand as needed to produce the base as flat as possible.

Place the edge pavers from the trench side, pushing them as tight collectively and as tight against the existing pavers as you can. Harness the surface of the pavers with a rubber mallet to embed them from the sand base. Check for flat as you add the pavers.

Line the outside of the edge pavers with plastic edge restraints pushed up tight against the pavers. Drive 10-inch steel spikes to the guide holes of the edge restraints spaced 12 inches apart along the length of the paver surface.

Sweep masonry sand into the cracks around the edge pavers and spray lightly with water to settle on the sand. Sweep more sand to fill the pavers into the top edge after settling the initial sand application.

Fill in the trench around the paver edge restraints using the indigenous soil. Add a layer of mulch to level using the top of the pavers, if wanted, or sow grass seed in the dirt.

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