Garden edging is an essential yet often overlooked aspect of landscape design. Edging visually defines beds and borders, contains plants, prevents erosion, and keeps your yard looking neat and tidy. With many edging materials now available—from classic brick to contemporary steel—choosing the right styles and layouts transforms basic grass and mulch expanses into polished gardens showcasing visual appeal.
The Importance of Garden Edging
Before assessing material or style options, understanding why edging plays such an essential role in garden bed designs sets the stage:
- Defining Boundaries: Edging clearly delineates where mulched planting beds end and lawns begin for crisp delineation between zones.
- Preventing Plant Spread: Borders constrain wandering vines, roots, and bulbs within allotted space stopping wayward spread.
- Protecting Plants: Edges safeguard delicate plants from stomping feet, equipment traffic, and weed invasions by locking designated areas.
- Moisture Retention: Sunken borders and raised ledges prevent rainfall runoff from escaping, keeping water nourishing plants longer instead of sheeting away.
- Erosion Control: Secured borders fight erosion creep degrading mulch and soil integrity preventing costly ongoing replacements.
- Aesthetic Appeal: Visually appealing edging styles boost landscape panache through color, texture, and layout formats creating cohesion.
Now that the tremendous form and function benefits of quality edging lend overall garden bed appeal shine clear, let’s survey material and design options meeting needs large or small, complex or basic.
Types of Garden Edging Materials
The wide array of garden edging materials available can be broadly classified into the following categories:
- Natural Stone: Granites, limestones, slates, and sandstones with chiseled, staggered, or curved faces offer organic, freeform edge styles, but prove heavy lifting and stay pricey. Great accent choices.
- Brick: Classic rectangular clay bricks deliver tidy perimeter lines at friendlier budgets, but demand dug trenches and occasional resets from frost heaving. Love their architectural look.
- Concrete: Poured concrete curbs allow seamless custom lengths with gravel aggregates adding etched textures, but require wood frame forming and curing times before mulch contact. Clean lines!
- Wood: Planks, logs, or timbers bring natural, rustic appeal economically using found offcuts, but require replacing every few years as organic materials rot. Charming cabin vibes!
- Metal: Painted steel, copper, and aluminum profiles offer sleek linear options with modern to postmodern aesthetics, promising decades of service with minor upkeep.
- Plastic: PVC/resin plastic edging rolls from stores ease DIY installations around rounded landscapes with some flex, but prove lightweight requiring numerous stakes to prevent kickouts. Budget quick fix!
Spotlight on Cold-Rolled Steel: The Modern Edging Solution
Cold-rolled steel has emerged as a popular choice for modern garden edging due to its numerous advantages:
- Durability: Industrial-grade steel withstands decades of exposure to elements retaining integrity far longer than wood, being frost resistant unlike concrete, and resisting corrosion if color-coated, unlike raw metals.
- Flexibility: Edging components curve-shape beds elegantly unlike square profiles. Sections reconnect or remove reinventing layouts down the road as garden designs evolve.
- Minimal Maintenance: Beyond an occasional spray-off or wipe-down, durable steel borders become set-and-forget installations compared to high-upkeep materials.
- Modern Aesthetic: Whether powder-coated gray or coated vibrant colors matching contemporary garden themes, steel edging imparts clean visual lines aligning with current landscape trends away from old-fashioned frilly edges.
Cold rolled steel is used by FormBoss to create innovative rolled steel Garden Edging in Australia sucking modern vibes into landscape projects with urban to environmentally integrated flair unmatched by legacy bordering approaches.
Choosing the Right Edging for Your Garden
The ideal garden edging material depends on several factors, including:
- Garden Style: Formal British estate styles suit concrete or stone lines while informal cottage gardens embrace flowing curves using bricks or scalloped wood borders. Match material to motifs.
- Budget: Brick packs or plastic rolls cost little but demand repairs eventually. Wood needs replacing every few years. Concrete, stone, and steel prove priciest initially but then become permanent fixtures.
- Maintenance Requirements: Poured concrete borders crack over seasons requiring patching while steel edges need only occasional washes. Consider lifecycle efforts with each medium.
- Durability: Select lasting materials like commercial-grade steel or concrete avoiding frequent replacement frustrations associated with cheaper wood or biodegrading plastic prone to popping up.
- Personal Preference: Beyond functional factors, explore edging material and styling visualizing finished looks in the landscape boosting your enjoyment of garden spaces every day for years to come.
Types of Garden Edging Designs
Garden edging comes in various styles and designs, each serving a specific purpose and complementing different garden aesthetics. Here are some common types:
- Mower Strip: Narrow poured concrete or metal borders running straight lengths allow mowers to ride along clean manicured lines where lawns meet planting zones without scalping stops and starts destroying turf edges.
- In-Ground Edging: Wood planks, steel partitions, brick rows, and concrete borders sunk with tops flush finish with soil levels containing mulch neatly inside while minimizing tripping hazards versus raised ledges. Offers seamless integration.
- Raised Edging: Elevated wood beams, stone borders, and concrete curbing rises a few inches above lawns corralling soil and mulch piles using sunken back sides to prevent slippage outward. Durable definition results!
- Flexible Edging: Curvy steel strips powder coated in bright colors or plastic composite borders get staked conforming beds to round shapes, tree rings or gradually meandering edges with suitable give avoiding sharp turns challenging mowers. Customization is friendly!
- Invisible Edging: Subsurface plastic or metal barriers sunk an inch below soil lines avoid stark visible contrasts while still preventing unwanted root spread beyond designated mulch beds and blocking grass creep inward over years. Underground efficiency!
Installation Tips and Techniques
When ready to put newly purchased edging in place, what key steps ensure it gets properly positioned? Follow this streamlined process:
- Planning: Map out exact border placement and dimensions with spray paint or flour leaving layout lines guiding installation. This prevents miscalculations once digging commences. Mark utilities first avoiding subsurface lines!
- Preparation: Outline edged areas by cutting sod using sharp shovels or edging knives removing grass strips 2-3 inches wide where borders will insert flush with soil without eating into lawns.
- Tools and Materials: Prepare all edging pieces, stabilization stakes if applicable, metal snips cutting custom lengths if needed, mallets for pounding edging, levels keeping rows straight, and gloves protecting hands.
- Installation: For compacted earth, slice starter furrows guiding placements. Adhere to box instructions securing edging at intervals recommended to prevent kickouts. Backfill under ledge types, tamping firmly to brace.
- Finishing Touches: Stand back evaluating spacing consistency, corner preciseness, and sections needing tighter alignments. For raised ledges, top-dress back sides with fresh soil filling any visible gaps before mulching forward sections defining newly edged garden beds!
Conclusion
Gone are the days of settling for dull lawn and mulch extremes separated by sloppy grass scallops slowly encroaching on each other season after season thanks to the amazing selection of edging styles now available elevating beds to crisp new visual planes.
Whether modern in-ground steel partitions, timeless brick perimeter rows, or curved plastic rings around standalone trees, easy-to-install garden edging gives landscapes polished refinement garnering serious curb appeal and containment control boosting functionality considerably.