I have an excellent guy who did our walk and our driveway. H e was a real artist. I would give him the highest recommendation. The work was great.

His name is Mr. Gibbs 301-270-4062

My only suggestions on the walk:
1. Make it wide---I regret my width.
2. Have him lay electrical conduit underneath. You never know when you are going to want to run an electrical wire. Just cover the ends of the conduit with duct tape. Very easy ahead of time---impossible once it is set in concrete.
Again my lack of foresight is going to cost $$$.

Philip, how thick is the concrete on the walk? You can get drill bits/augers that you can use to bore out a spot under an existing pathway to run wire. Homestead Gardens has one for about $20 that is very nice. I have one that I got someplace else that is not as nice but was cheaper and is quite functional. It works VERY well for planting lots of small plants quickly.

Can you get him to lay more walkway alongside the existing one? Maybe make it look like a/more border so it looks all of a piece?

Lynne

Lynne,

I don't quite understand. I thought augers drilled vertically. So I drill a vertical hole on either side of the walkway. Then what do I do? A simple vertical hole is going to give me no leeway to put a horizontal hole under the walkway. Could you explain again?

Philip,

Do you know if Mr. Gibbs also does brick retaining walls? Ours is completely falling apart and needs rebuilt.

Jen

I didn't use him for that, but I believe a colleague did. Mr Gibbs is a very methodical worker. I would have confidence in any masonry he did. He did our driveway and rebuilt our walkway. In retrospect he wasn't very proactive about suggesting things we might consider (like widening the walkway or laying conduit under it). So think through what you want and tell him. I am sure he will build it right.

Philip, what they showed on the instructions was to go at an angle down under the sidewalk from both sides until you met in the middle and had a clear path. If your walkway is very long I don't know if it would work but it would for a standard sidewalk width.

Here is a link that might be useful: Something similar to this...

http://www.gardenauger.com/06garden_augers.html has a good picture. They also sell a BIG horizontal auger that is made to go under sidewalks. So it might not be that expensive to have someone commercial come out just to drill a hole under your walkway if it's too wide to do it with a regular drill and auger.

http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/sw_sod/article/0,2029,DIY_14369_2278540,00.html

DIY has an article that sort of explains how to do it by hand. I think you would be able to use the drill auger if you prepped the area and dug down beside the walkway a bit (like they show here) so you could get the drill bit in horozontally.

Hope this helps..

Lynne

Here is a link that might be useful: garden auger

I got one of those for planting bulbs and it worked GREAT!!!! My husband was VERY pleased. He had planted ~60 bulbs by hand and it took him an hour or two. With the auger it took about 10 minutes. Great tool.

Jen