How to Edge a Planting Bed

To complement well-tended, lush plants and flowers inside a bed in your garden, create a neat edge to surround it. Not only is garden edging aesthetically pleasing, it also keeps grass and weeds from taking over the bed. Although you can form an edge with bricks or cement, the most basic way of edging a planting bed is to dig a straight line in the grass.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Wooden stakes
• String
• Half-moon edger or straight-bottomed spade

1. Examine the grass along the outside edge of the garden bed to see where it becomes thick and lush. Grass directly bordering the bed is often thinned out and bare. Drive a wooden stake into the ground with a hammer in the thick grass, which is usually several inches outside the bed.

2. Continue to drive stakes into the ground several feet apart around the perimeter of the planting bed. Place them in line with the first stake.

3. Tie a piece of string, long enough to enclose the perimeter of the bed, around one of the wooden stakes in the ground. Loop the string around each adjacent stake to form straight lines between them, encircling the planting bed. Tie the string around the first stake again when you reach it to complete the circle.

4. Position a half-moon edger or a square-bottomed spade against the inside edge of your string marker and drive it several inches into the ground. Move along the string, driving the edger or spade into the ground all the way around the bed to create a line for the garden edging.

5. Stand inside the planting bed and undercut the sod with the edger or spade to meet the cuts made in Step 4. This loosens the sod and allows you to lift it out with your hand, creating a clean edge for your planting bed.

6. Remove the string and stakes, and admire your neatly edged bed.

Tips & Warnings

• Clean up the perimeter of garden edging twice or three times a year.