Edging for a Perennial Garden

Mixed edging materials separate this garden from the lawn.

Installing edging around a perennial garden serves several purposes. Edging will prevent the lawn from invading the garden, and the garden from migrating into the lawn. Edging can provide a visual separation between the garden and the lawn. Some edging, such as landscaping timbers, must be installed in straight lines, but other edging can accommodate gentle curves, which you can lay out with a couple of garden hoses attached together. Garden edging can add to the beauty -- and therefore the value -- of your home.

Plastic Strips

Flexible plastic garden edging is usually sold in strips 20 or more feet long. The strips may have a flange at the bottom through which stakes are pounded to hold it in place. In other instances, the edging is held in place just by the weight of the soil around it. Installing this edging involves digging a trench as deep as the edging and wide enough to allow you to insert the edging or to accommodate the flanges at the bottom of the strip. Flexible plastic garden edging is the easiest edging to install, as well as the least expensive. Plastic edging made from recycled materials is also available.

Cast Concrete Edging

Cast concrete edging is available in a huge number of styles and sizes. The simplest is brick-sized piece of concrete, while more complex forms have scalloped edges, consist of three brick-sized pieces of concrete, or have notched ends that fit into each other to help keep the edging stable. The edging can be laid flush with the soil around it, or it can be higher, creating a more noticeable outline of the garden bed. Installing cast concrete edging involves digging a trench, lining it with landscaping fabric to prevent weeds from growing up between the pieces, putting sand in the trench to provide a base before laying the edges. The most difficult part is keeping the edging level, which you achieve by checking the edging often and adjusting individual edgers as necessary.

Brick Edging

Brick edging is available at a somewhat higher price than its cast concrete counterpart. Installation is the same as for the concrete version.

Natural Stone Edging

Natural stones such as rounded river stones, granite, slate, flagstone, limestone, flagstone. Often natural stone edgers are not regular in shape, so laying them is more difficult that installing other edging systems, but they can be well worth the extra time and expense. Lay natural stone edging by digging a trench that reflects the depth at which you want the stones to sit, and then layering landscaping fabric, pea-sized gravel and sand. Natural stone is expensive. As an alternative, you can buy cast concrete or plastic edgers made to look like natural stone.

Landscaping Timber

Landscaping timber creates a very bold garden edging, suitable only if your garden is large. With a first course of timbers set just a few inches below ground, and a second course laid on top, landscaping timbers are an easy way to build raised garden beds. Set further into the ground, they create a permanent and distinctive garden border. Find out exactly how the wood is treated to make it weather resistant. Some chemicals used in this process are poisonous to humans (and they won't do your vegetables and flowers any good either). Imitation landscaping timbers are available in plastic.

References

• Paver Search: Concrete, Stone and Brick Edging Introduction
• Home Depot: Installing Flat Brick Edging
• Family Handyman; The Best Garden Bed Edging Tips; April 2004
• Donnan Landscape Services: Landscape Edging
• Home Depot: Installing Landscape Timber Edging