Concrete Curbs and Gutters

In your work, you may have encountered curbs and gutters on several scales — a border around a flowerbed, curbs and stops in a parking lot, sidewalks in a new subdivision, or a full-on highway project. Here's a look at some of the possibilities for adding value to these projects with decorative techniques.

Curbs in new places
Curbs are familiar sights by the street or in a parking lot, but landscape curbs are growing in popularity around North America. Concrete curbs around garden beds serve several functions. They retain water in the bed. They prevent mulch and stone from escaping onto the lawn or sidewalk. They keep weeds from invading the bed from the lawn. And with an L-shaped curb profile facing the lawn, you can mow right up to the edge. It's no wonder that these curbs exert a powerful effect on neighbors, who begin calling to get estimates of their own once the first house has been done in a neighborhood.

If landscape curbs are popular in your town, or you'd like to make them so, check out small slipforming machines, which are much easier to use than wooden forms or even reusable flexible forms. The Kwik Kerb machine, from Edgemaster, and the Lil' Bubba, from The Concrete Edge Company, lend themselves not only to residential work around curved garden beds and walkways but also to commercial parking lots.

The small machines can extrude curbs on a paved surface or on compact soil. On a paved surface, the curb can be extruded over rebar spikes, lengthwise rebar, or epoxy adhesive.