I Built my Mom a Brick Flower Garden

I built my mom this brick flower garden with a skid of used bricks we found on the local Craigslist. The color was Mount Rushmore by Boral Brick according to the seller. This is a face brick and probably not meant for this application, but it worked fine. We estimate it was 1200 bricks for about $150 plus the rental truck costs. A new skid may cost $1000 plus. The only problem was that we had to load and unload them by hand in the August heat.

I dug the trench down about 4 inches and made a crude form from scrap wood we had laying around. I think it took 7 bags of concrete and 6 bags of mortar to complete.

The concrete topper was made using a reusable form. I added a Quickrete colorant (charcoal) according to the instructions. I can’t say it made it much darker but it ended up matching the siding of the house. I stuck tree leaves in the still-wet concrete to add a detail for Mom. We saw some leaf impressions in a sidewalk a few days prior to this. The topper took an additional 6 bags of concrete.

I learned what I know about bricklaying on Youtube from my guru Paul at www.learntolaybrick.com. Thanks Paul! His and other youtube videos are the best bet for you to learn the technique in detail. My videos are meant to show the general order of events for an amateur attempt. I did find bricklaying a meditative and calming activity after getting started. You should try it.

This build was done before the shed video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1cPq3obfrw&t=53s. We wanted to get a good picture of the garden with some flowers in it before posting. The picture at the end is a about a year after completing the wall. Thanks for watching!