In article , tom
writes
Hi,

My existing lawn goes right up to the side of my garage and I fing it
hard to mow up to the side of it. I was thinking of putting a
flowerbed in a) to make mowing easier & b) for a bit of colour.

1.Will this damage the garage footings (plant roots etc)?

Not if you keep to small plants rather than bushes and trees.

2. Whats the minimum width / depth it should be? I was thinking about
2 ft wide from the new grass edge to the garage wall. Is this ok?

That's fine. I don't think there's any particular minimum. Plants will
grow in very small spaces! It's basically an aesthetic question.

Its west facing so it gets a good bit of sun at tea time.

Is putting a flower bed in just a case of removing the grass & roots &
then planting plants?

Yes. But if you remove the grass, you will remove the top couple of
inches of soil with it, and the soil underneath may not be quite as good
- try replacing it with top soil from elsewhere in your garden. Or, if
you're buying in reasonably sized plants, dig a hole bigger than you
need, and fill it with compost and plant into that.

You will need to think about the border between grass and flower bed. If
you do nothing, the grass will try to grow back into the flower bed, and
you'll either need to keep weeding, or keep a sharp edge to the lawn
which you keep cutting. You can use some sort of border, like those log
rolls they sell for the purpose, or the Victorian style rope-edge
bricks, but you'll have the same problem with mowing as you do with your
garage wall. Best, IMO, is a row of flat slabs between lawn and flower
beds - you can run the mower over it and cut all the grass, but it forms
a boundary between bed and lawn.


--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"