I'm in the process of turning my [long, narrow and shady] back yard into something more interesting than tons and tons of vinca - and I'd like to build up part of the garden into a mound about 10' long by l2.5' tall. Is there a more efficient way than buying a ton of dirt?
cheers!
No.
You're going to need more than a ton of dirt. More like 3-4 dumptruck loads and a bobcat to move it from your driveway to your back yard. And, that's assuming your backyard is accessible to a bobcat. If it's not, then forget it. 44 cubic yards of material would take a whole Boy Scout Troop all summer to move with wheelbarrows and shovels, and you'd still probably have leftovers.
That is, assuming you meen 10 *feet* by 12 *feet* and not inches. If you mean just raising a 10' long bed a foot, then it's probably feasable work for a single fit person with a truck over a summer.
If you lived next door I'd give you my dirt that I removed to build a
25 x 15 x 3.5 foot pond. It took (two men) almost two weeks to dig out with a shovel, and not something I'd want to do in the mid-summer heat !
A 'mound' 10 feet long by 12.5 feet tall is not a mound at all - it is an unstable pile of soil that will not maintain those dimensions. I assume there is a typo here and the 12.5 feet is really more like 12 inches, in which case you have pretty reasonable dimensions for a small berm. Generally, berms are constructed with a slope of no more than 5:1 - steeper slopes look awkward, specially in small gardens, and will require some additional form of stabilization to prevent erosion or sliding.. This means that for a berm 10 feet long/wide, the maximum height you should attempt to achieve will be 24 inches, but I have found that a slightly gentler slope is easier to plant and maintain and looks most natural.
A very easy way to achieve this is by removing sod from an area in your garden and laying it upside down (root side up) in the location of the berm to the desired height A light layer - 3-4 inches - of decent soil over the top and you will be ready to plant. If you have no sod to remove for the base, then you are looking at bringing in a quantity of soil. Assuming the berm will be about as wide as it is long, about 2.5 cubic yards should do it.
This link may help:
Eeek! My finfers got away with me! That should have been a 10 foot long bed, raised about 2.5 feet tall, and varying from about 1 to 4 feet wide.
Er, yeah. I wasn't planning on creating amon sur in my backyard ;>
cheers!
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