No one seems to know what a Berm is in regards to landscaping. I know mountain bikers use them and according to the dictionary it can help block tanks but we’re using it for a less nefarious way. Our berm is a landscaping feature that doesn’t have to be mowed (!) and helps block sound from the busy road. To make one: Create a shape for your berm first then fill it up with dirt, sand, leaves, dead bodies – whatever creates mass. Keep filling it until it’s at least 18 inches high and slopes down from the center to the sides. Add some perennials like grass, mums or tulips and then cover with weed block and mulch. After it is filled and decorated you can edge it with large stones. We got ours free from Facebook Marketplace for FREEEEE! Each year it grows in more and more. It’s now a beautiful spot in our yard!
Front Yard Garden
20 Comments
Beautiful 💐🌿Thx 4 sharing 🙏🏼😌
Nice. That was good, thank you. Keep it up!
Wow, you did a great job. It looks beautiful.
Did you dig up what was growing there first? Or just dump the "new" dirt on top?
Thanks for making this video!
Great job TFS
Looks beautiful ❤️Great job!
This helped me a lot for my traditional garden thank you.
I just built a berm also and my neighbors also thought I was crazy. For the record it’s a little bit high. It’s probably 4 feet high. The first time I did it I messed up and made the hill with an 18° slope. So I had to go back and rent a bobcat and move the hill until it was around 12°. This way I can still mow the grassy embankment on either side of the berm with a commercial mower
I have a question, did you remove the grass before you starting putting dirt on it in the beginning?
I built a berm with free materials as well. You wouldn’t believe how cheap it is to build a berm on a foundation of medical waste. I know it sounds crazy but medical facilities literally give away old IV bags (can you say “sand bag”), pre-owned medical devices like scalpels (think “rebar”), needles and even used medical implants that have been replaced.
So here’s my story. I live in Myrtle Beach and the terrain in my yard is absolutely flat. In fact the entire town is flat. There isn’t a hill within 100 miles of the beach. I live in a very competitive neighborhood. Everyone is always trying to outdo the next homeowner with a superior lawn or a more luxurious swimming pool. I told my husband that I wanted our yard to be the talk of the town. We live in a very exclusive neighborhood but don’t have the cash flow that has enabled our neighbors to build their Gardens of Eden. But I, with a little determination and a few truck loads of free medical waste, constructed the only grassy hill (berm) in the entire low country in my very own backyard!
If you’d like to build a berm like we did you will need to track down a smaller medical disposal company. I found that the bigger companies would not even sell you the medical waste. They’d prefer to literally burn this perfectly good building material than have a consumer repurpose it. I found a guy named Frank at a local tavern who said he could get me as much medical waste as I wanted for free.
After receiving your mixed loads of medical waste you must sort the material. Use IV bags filled with aggregate to build a solid foundation. You can insert needles or scalpels in the bags after they are filled to give them structure and rigidity. We used the bandages and bandaids to hold everything together. Consider it the glue that binds the pile.
Finally, you will need to source a few inches of topsoil to cover berm scaffolding. And, lastly, plant grass or some other root bearing plant to prevent erosion. You too can be the talk of your neighborhood on a budget. Please visit my channel for other money saving tips to live that luxury life just out of your pocketbook’s reach.
Lovley.
Absolutely beautiful! I love what you’ve done. Quick question what type of mulch did you use? I’ve often wondered about the mulch that you buy because it’s coloured – is there any problem with that?
OMG you are hilarious, I wish I was your neighbor. I am the one who bought the dirt for this, I know who does that? My neighbors probably thought I was a crazy person as well.
I created a berm in my front yard using tree trimmings from the local utilities that were in my area. I stacked the the wood chips 12 in to 15 in high. It looked kind of rough for the first few months but now 7 months later the wood chips have turned to a gray color and are laying very flat. My burn is approximately 70 paces long and eight paces wide. I have added over 60 plants including shrubs and trees. I'm currently eyeing my neighbors rocks in his backyard.
Awesome! I love it..hey if I did this and planted lily bulbs down in there, would that be enough "earth" to keep them warm over winter in zone 8 1/2 (Houston)? It rarely gets below 28 and if it does it is only a few days…
BEAUTIFUL JOB!!👏
How did your town and/or the CC&Rs of your subdivision work with this idea? Were you required to observe specific setbacks from the road? I’m sure there’s a utility easement that runs along the front there and am curious as to how you managed that.
I want a “berm” and had a hard time describing it to my husband 😂 I now realize it’s an “embankment”. Also, thanks for making it look so easy! I thought we had to do some additional digging for it. We have a pile of dirt as well I could use and “buying” dirt does feel wrong haha
Could you use netted pebble tile over a rounded surface like a berm? When I put weed barrier down with regular gravel or bark chips over my rosebush berm mounds the gravel or bark chips always ends up rolling off exposing the black weed barrier over time.
I want to get some netted pebble tile like cobblestone rock and basically tile it down with a rubberized flexible grout that will last long term on my berm mounds with holes around my rose bushes and plants to grow. Have you ever seen anything like this before?