Best Landscape Edging Ideas – How To Enhance Your Garden Looks

Most times, it is not how much money you spend on your lawn that gives it an alluring and professional look. It also does not depend on the number of different flowers or trees you plant. One very important factor that determines the appearance of your landscape is the arrangement.

The difference between a truly impressive landscape and a dull or average looking one is in the tiny little details like how well you separate the different areas that make up your landscape. For instance a flower border, a shrub bed, a single tree, the walkways, the driveways, the passage from a patio to the surrounding garden or the backyard.

To achieve the needed separation between these areas, proper landscape edging needs to be done. A well-defined edge shows a sharp contrast between a yard that looks messy and disorderly and one that looks professionally groomed.

Landscape edging also prevents weeds and roots from creeping into surrounding gardens, ensures that soil or mulch in garden beds do not spill onto the lawn whenever you water or it rains. For pathways that are made of loose material, proper landscape edging helps to maintain the walkway at the same time, keeping the path materials in place.

The more you can pay attention to the little things like landscape edging, the better your home surroundings will look. If you want to know how to landscape edging, you will find this write up very useful.

This article will highlight seven best landscape edging based on the different materials you can use. Since every individual’s interest, budget and the structure of landscapes differ, there are certain factors to consider before thinking of how to install landscaping edging or the different types of landscape edging.

Factors to Examine Before Considering How to Install Landscaping Edging

Shape and design of your garden: This is the most important factor to consider. If the shape and design of your garden is ignored, the edging installed will appear as a mess instead of highlighting the beauty of the landscape.

Check if your garden bed has sharp corners and turns or if your garden is slightly rounded and then you can determine the type of material to use that will fit it. You can also check if the design of the garden is formal, rustic, geometric, or comfortable.

The type of material to use: Taking into account that there are several materials that can be used as edging pavers, you confirm which one fits your taste and garden. If you want to make the design more fancy, you can as well go with decorative stones to brighten your garden.
Your budget: Another factor to check is how much you can be able to spend for landscape edging to avoid an unfinished project. Depending on your budget you can choose cheaper materials like plastic, or more expensive ones like natural stone pavers.
Maintenance of edging: Whatever material or type of edging you decide to go with will require maintenance but it differs in some ways. Different materials like metal and wood would require different maintenance routines. Also, narrow edging may require more upkeep than a thicker one would.
Climate condition: The climate condition of an area differs from that of another, therefore the edging material that works best in one place might be a disaster in another. For instance metal or wood edging would not be right for an area with a lot of rainfall due to rust or rot but vinyl would.

The Best Landscape Edging Ideas

1. Trench edging

Trench edging is a form of natural edge. It is one of the oldest and most cost-effective methods of landscape edging. It involves making a straight down clean cut in between the lawn and garden bed of about 6″ deep with a shovel, manual rotary, or half-moon edger.

To avoid grass creeping across the border and into the bed, make another clean cut at a 45 degree angle toward the garden bed and away from the lawn in order to meet the first cut you had earlier made.

Then fill the trench with mulch. Since this method involves little or no material, it is one of the cheapest and natural looking. It also makes mowing the lawn easier since there is no barrier, however, it requires more maintenance to always retain a clean, crisp look.

2. Natural Stone Pavers Edging

Using natural stone pavers as an edging material is another way to give your garden a natural look, especially if you designed your front yard landscape with natural stones too.

Choosing natural stone pavers as the landscape edging paver will offer you choices like using rocks, raised stone boulders etc. Rocks are available in different sizes, colors, and shapes, helping you achieve interesting looks.

For raised stone boulders like edging pavers, it gives off a dramatic and impressive look. Some can decide to stack up different rocks like the types of rocks used as garden stepping stones or outrightly go for really large landscape edging pavers, both depending on individual taste. The gaps between boulders and rocks can create avenues for drainage.

3. Wood Edging

Using wood as an edging material is another natural way of landscape edging, especially if the wood used is not treated with chemicals. The wood will rot gradually from moisture since it is not treated with chemicals.

When the wood is treated, it will take much more time to rot than when it is not, saving you the stress of the wood barriers more often but when a treated rots, it can leach into the soil and affect your plant especially vegetables.

Also, wood edging would not be the best choice for a garden with curvy edges since it would be bent as the woods are almost always cut in straight planks.

4. Plastic Edging

Cost wise, using plastic as an edging paver is a good choice since they don’t cost as much as other edging materials. The flexibility of plastic also makes it best for dealing with curvy beds and edges and the easiest to work with.

Since they are light-weight, they don’t require much energy to lift or carry around. They are also easy to install. However, for garden beds with sharp edges, plastic should not be used if you hope to achieve the sharp, crisp corners.

When plastic landscape edging is not properly installed, they can look messy, ruining the appearance of the landscape.

5. Metal edging or decorative fence

Using metals as an edging material can require you to dig a trench or hammer it into the soil depending on the type of metal used. By using metals, you can segment your landscape without worrying about the metal rotting, cracking, chipping, or becoming brittle in cold weather.

Metal edgings will give you an elegant, strong, tailored and durable result. The two most common options when using metals as an edging paver are steel and aluminum. Between the two options, steel is stronger, and even though it is thin in appearance, it is stable when installed into the ground, withstanding wind and ground movement.

When the steel is not treated, it can rust. The rusting process will initially start out silver in color and then change into a rust patina that will not look bad if you are going for the rustic look. Steel, like most metals, can corrode, but it does so at a very slow rate and can take up to 40 years to completely rust through.

The other option is the heavy gauge aluminum. If you want a polished looking lawn, go for aluminum since it doesn’t rust like steel. Aluminum is also lightweight and more flexible than steel, making it easier to lift and carry around.

Being soft and flexible makes it a good choice for curvy edges but also makes it prone to bending, dents and dings, which may happen if a car backs over it.

6. Brick edging

Brick edging is another type of edging to use on your lawn to prevent weeds from creeping into your garden or separating the landscape. Installing brick edging does not require professional training, you can DIY.

You can lay the bricks in a shallow trench side by side or stand them upright. For a firmer result, you can choose to add mortar to the base. For a thicker edging, lay down two layers of bricks next to each other, one horizontally and the next vertically will make it even thicker.

Bricks can both be used for garden beds with straight, crisp edges and also ones with curved edges. If you decide to change the type of edging paver to another or relocate, bricks can be moved.

When new, bricks have a crisp red color but after being used for a long time, they can develop a rustic, faded appearance. Gradually, lichen and moss will also grow on them, giving them a natural look.

7. Bender board

Bender Board is made of plastic and used for landscaping, artificial turf, fence or concrete forming. It is made from 100% recycled polyethylene plastic and so does not decompose or rot.

They can appear in different colors and sizes.

Since they are flexible, it is usually difficult to place in a straight line but easy to cut into desired sizes. Bender boards can also serve as a good landscape edging material since they are strong, do not splinter, break and are insect proof.

With their UV protection, they do not deteriorate because of sunlight and are easy to maintain.

To set up a bender board, first lay it out in sunshine to loosen it up, then dig a small trench, place the bender board, level it and then refill the trench with dirt to firmly hold it. When installing in the curvy part of the landscape, use matching plastic stakes every 4 – 6 feet for a better result.

Conclusion

The above listed types of landscape edging are not the only types available. Based on an individual’s taste, budget, the design of the garden and the climate condition of the area, a person can choose to use any of the numerous available edging pavers.

Meanwhile, instead of going through one site to another searching for the best landscape edging ideas, why not consider any of the seven listed landscape edgings and your garden will thank you!