Custom Landscape Curbing

Most residential jobs run $40 to $50 per linear foot for standard curbing, and $48 to $68 per foot with color or a stamped pattern. A typical front yard of 150 feet lands around $7,900 to $10,950. Runs under 100 feet price higher per foot, $60 to $75, because setup, mixing and cleanup cost the same whether the run is 40 feet or 400. Use the calculator on this site for a real number on your own yard.

Most national cost guides quote $12 to $22 a foot, but those figures are for plain gray curbing on the mainland. Two things separate that from an Oahu price. First, decorative work means color and stamping, and that is its own tier nationally at $25 to $45 a foot. Second, Hawaii is the most expensive state in the country for concrete, running about 1.35 times the national average, with construction costs 20 to 40 percent above the mainland because nearly every material arrives by barge. Apply that factor to the decorative tier and you get $34 to $61 a foot, which is where our pricing sits.

Not the way it does on the mainland. The failure everyone has read about is frost heave. Water freezes under the curb, lifts it, and cracks it over a few winters. That does not happen here, because Oahu does not freeze. What does cause problems locally is expansive clay soil on the leeward side, tree roots exploiting an existing weak point, and curb placed on loose fill instead of compacted undisturbed ground. Control joints are cut so that any movement cracks in a straight line at a joint where it reads as part of the design, rather than randomly. No honest installer will promise concrete that never cracks.

For St. Augustine and seashore paspalum, yes. Both spread by stolons that run above ground, and a raised curb face is a real barrier they have to climb over into dry mulch. Bermuda grass is the honest exception. Bermuda spreads by underground rhizomes as well as surface stolons, and a standard curb does not go deep enough to stop rhizomes. If you have Bermuda, curbing will dramatically reduce the creep and end the string trimming, but you will still need to manage the bed edge. We would rather tell you that up front than have you find out in year two.

It can, and this is the single most important thing to get right on the windward side. Kaneohe averages around 65 inches of rain a year onto slow-draining clay. An unbroken curb run along a foundation becomes a retaining dam. We cast half-inch rain gaps into the curb at the low points, spaced fifteen to twenty feet apart, so water passes through but mulch and rock still stay put. A crew trained in a dry climate often skips this. On Oahu it is not optional.

Most residential jobs are one day on site. About a foot of turf comes out along the whole run, and there is a machine and a mixer working. The curb is firm within hours and you can put mulch back once it has set. Concrete reaches full strength at 28 days, so keep pets and kids off it early, and hold off mowing tight against it until the end of that period.