I can't speak to whether this is a good method or not, but can say that my driveway and my patio (installed by different companies) both have sand as the base. The soil is very thin, and grasses struggle at the edge of the driveway. At the garden edge, as most of the patio abuts gardens, I use very drought-tolerant plants like marigold and zinnia.

You do have three options here.

One, you can get a bag of compost and apply about a quarter inch in the struggling areas. It provides a bit of mulch, and will slowly work in to help the soil retain water. Since the area is small and we would want the mulching effect, compost (or peat moss, or untreated sawdust) would be best as you can pour that stuff on. Refresh the layer when it fades, which it will as it works into the ground.

Two, water more often. Combine that above option with it and the two should work fairly well together. While grass can tolerate 2" of soil, it really wants four inches. Or more. Sometimes far more, as with fescue and rye.

Three, edge out the lawn in that margin and add mulch to make it a neater transition to grass that won't die out when it gets dry.

I know this is from a few years ago, but I came across your post when I searched the internet for the exact same problem as you had. Can you advise me? What did you do to fix the problem. We had a lawn care expert tell us that the acid in the concrete will keep the sod from growing. We’re you able to grow grass along the pavers?

Vicky if you have concrete just under the surface, you're sort of stuck. What happens is the concrete heats up with the sun conducted from the warm pavers to the underlying concrete border. The warm concrete heats the soil and evaporates the moisture faster than the adjacent deeper soil. I don't like the idea of watering more frequently, but that is the solution if you insist on grass right there. It would be better to bring the concrete to the surface flush with the pavers and then grass out from that border.

Where do you live?

What kind of grass do you have?

Thanks for your reply! I’m on Long Island and we put sod down last year. The concrete does go out past the stone a few inches so we know that’s why the grass is yellow. So I guess we either cut the sod back, break the cement flush with the stone like you said, then replace sod. Or edge the entire walkway with soil and plant easy growing flowers like impatients. Either way, pain in the neck after such nice sod was put down and it’s about 100’ Long of a walkway.

No, don't break the concrete. Add more to bring it up to the surface, or even give it an extra inch so you can edge the grass up against it.

I'm not sure impatiens would grow in shallow soil either. But you could bring the soil out 18 inches or so and do a flower bed.

We have the exact situation. We removed the grass, dug out more of the lawn, about three inches wide and placed a form flush with the grass. There will be about a six to eight inch trough depth between the pavers and the form. We used rocks or rubble and poured dry cement between the rocks and sprayed the cement with water. We let it dry and repeated layer by layer for about five inches, The last three inches we mixed the cement and poured the final layers to the level of the pavers. We added a few decorative rocks in the cement for effect. We left the forms in place. The repair was approximately twenty feet long. The result is the grass edge is the same depth as the rest of the lawn. Nice green edges!

@rellison53 Are you able to post a picture of what your lawn looks like now? We are having this problem and will probably need a similar solution but I’m just trying to visualise it!!

Thank you :)

There is a little "Bug" that lives underground. It feeds on the grass roots. It becomes active in late winter/early spring when the pavement (concrete walks) are warmed by the sun at that time of year. The bare spots need to be wetted with the right type of pesticide at that time. Later in spring or summer is too late. Always shows up along the pavement/grass borders. The hardware store that provided the pesticide to me 10 years ago tells it has been banned. It worked great ! Now the currently available products don't work.

Richard, Lone Tree Colorado

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p.s. Concrete is alkaline, not acidic. No problem after it has aged a year or two It does absorb and evaporate some of the moisture in the soil what contacts it. I have been in my home over 20 years. Got rid of the problem 10 years ago easily, but it's back. Now my front lawn looks JUST like the pictures !

Richard, Lone Tree, Colorado

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