Exactly! I have a tiny backyard and my eyes stop right at the edging and makes the yard look smaller. It is unbelievably ugly...fortunately, I dont have a lawn and can rip it out if i figure out how.

Good question, and that leads to another question. Since commercial edging is ugly, why to people insist on buying that floppy plastic stuff that sits on top of the ground? They use it to form rings around heir trees (ugh!) and it invariably begins to flop and lose it's shape in a season or two. Even worse... why do people use that awful extruded concrete edging? It's almost as if they consider their bright concrete edging and seas of mulch to be a design feature.

Epic composite edging (see link) is fairly inconspicuous once your planting beds fill in. Unlike the photo in the link below, you barely notice the edging until you walk up and look for it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Epic composite edging

What a great observation. I had that reaction when looking through a gardener supply catalogue and seeing the ugly black plastic edging -- the seller is touting it as the "perfect way" to define your beds from the lawn. Ug.

The Victorian era gardeners had better solutions - they used those beautiful terracotta "rope" topped edgers, or bricks sunk on-edge in the ground. Of course, they didn't have plastic in those days. Though plastic is a Technological Wonder, there are some places where it should never, never be used. In the garden as edging is one of those places.

I like using granite cobbles, beach rocks or even flagstone set on edge. In a formal garden granite cobbles or bricks set on their edge would work nicely. The issue is that unless you have a free supply of rocks, or can get salvaged bricks cheap, plastic edging is way cheaper. Many people probably just opt for the least expensive edging material that is easiest to install.

Don't get me started on ugly edging. One of my pet peeves and now the garden goddess has seen fit to make me into one of the worst perpetrators! I suspect there is a disease of ugly edging for the same reasons that contribute to the plethora of other poorly made and designed garden junk. As for myself, I wanted some of those tasteful vicorian style bricks but couldn't find them. My last garden I went to a site where they were tearing down an old victorian store building to scrounge authentic bricks for edging. I suspect around my neighborhood people use it for the reason I have used it--rotten soil necessitating raised beds. PA clay--bleeeaaach! Edging and raised beds around tree trunks should be outlawed, it is so not good for the tree's health. I needed something quick and easy to install. I didn't have time to scope out the remote place that might sell something unusual. Suburbia is full of ubiquitous stores selling ubiquitous, poor quality junk and a lot of people, like me, don't have the time or knowledge to seek out alternatives, or the money to invest. I planned on scrounging for slate at a slag heap I know of to replace my ugly concrete blocks eventually. How many yard weenies will go to the trouble of searching for something that looks better than what they sell at the big box store. I had enough trouble just finding the plants I wanted. Luckily I did find that "out of the way" special nursery to help with that task.

At least that black edging you mostly bury is relatively inconspicuous, until you're right on top of it, and it keeps the grass out, you can mow over it - what I want to know is why is it so expensive for a strip of plastic? Not too far from a dollar a foot at the big box stores. I'd get more if it wasn't so steep, and it's a good deal cheaper than other edging.

Rocks sink in with time, so do bricks, and the grass grows between them.

Spading an edge has to be done every few weeks.

I guess I should calculate an hourly value of my time weeding and spading, vs. the edging - I just don't want to spend 200 dollars on plastic strips!

I'm going to get rid of some edges - no grass path between beds for instance.

A deep edge cut 4" straight down lasts a long time when done with a nice sharp hand tool.

I'm not sure that hand tools are still available.

There are these heirloom hand tools that I treasure, forty years or more old, called a mattock and a spade. I dig an 'English Edge' trench of more than four inches deep and fill it with mulch. If there's centipede or Bermuda grass to hold back, I line the trench with newspaper before filling with mulch. I happen to like wide grass paths.

Nell

I like that. Heirloom hand tools. It seems like all hand tools are becoming heirloom hand tools. Look at any landscape crew and if it does not have either a pull cord or electric cord they don't know how to use it. Well, unless it has a battery pack.

I see more threads on other "landscaper" forums where the young landscaper is trying to find power equipment for anything and everything. They want an auger to plant 1-gal. plants and annuals. Its getting absurd.

Note to self: go into equipment sales business.

I've found that a string trimmer turned sideways, so that the arc of the string is vertical, is handy for tidying up the natural edge. The spade is needed once a year, possibly more if your grass is really aggressive.

Does anyone use wooden bender board anymore?

Like Nell, I favor the look of the "English Edge" - neat, tidy and easy to maintain. I also have a favored tool for this purpose, a longhandled edger called a "Lawn Shark". It has a triangular blade with a serrated cutting edge. You insert the pointed end of the blade along the path you wish to cut and pull down on the serrated edge, making a sharp, clean cut. This is only required once or twice a season. Works as well along paths as it does for edging a bed. And I do interim trimming with sheep shears, another indespensible garden tool.

Of course the easiest way to maintain bed edges is to do away with lawns altogether :-)

Mattocks and spades are still part of the gardening arsenal. I have tools my father gave me that are 60 years old or more. The handles are original and have the patina that comes from sweat and skin oil. The metal heads are darkened and mellow except for the recently sharpened edges.

You can buy good tools if you go to the landscape and contracting specialists or specialty garden suppliers and avoid the big box places. A sharp, substantial spade or garden edger will slice the soil like a warm knife through butter, making the work less arduous.

I'm writing a book with my fiance at the moment, on Japanese garden cultivation/horticultural methods for Western gardeners. There's a chapter on tools, and I must say that the Japanese still make some of the best. Many are designs hundreds of years old that haven't had to be improved on. One tip I'll give away -- it's the state you keep your tools in that will render a job easy or hard. Edging doesn't need to be a hard task, and as laag says, if you cut it deep enough it will last.

As for rocks and bricks sinking, that can be prevented largely by making a more permanent edging trench, preparing it as you would a path with a substructure of packed granite fines or coarse sand, then crushed stone well packed. Install your edging of choice, then fill in with sand that can be tamped tight. It's a larger initial investment in labor and material, but it will last.

Hmmm...

So our best options seem to be: black plastic (sunk deep), Victorian brick/rocks, or deep edging cut/trench.

(Unfortunately for me Bermuda/St. Augustine here in the Houston area will overwhelm any of those in about 10 days.)

But--why do we feel the need to seperate?
What is this divisiveness, this catagorizing, everything in its place urge that humans have?
Is there anyway to blend the lawn into the bed?

(not that I won't still try to keep the grass out of my bed, but is there another way?)

I will speak as one who had lawn "blending" into my beds: not a good look. I'll take mowstrip edging any day over straggling clumps of grass in a perennial/shrub bed. I wanted the (I guess you guys are saying it's Victorian in origin) sunken brick border because I think it looks elegant; DH did the work and made some executive decisions so we have a nice small grassy area with a sunken border of weird cement brick-like things from the orange box store (they are longer than bricks and have a convex end and a concave end). Maybe one day they'll sink completely underground and we'll have to do something different.

I think edging occurs in nature. The trouble is that large expanses of lawn do not occur in nature. I think the best lawn edges are ones that are inconspicuous yet functional. Eventually they can be disguised as plants from the surrounding beds overhang the edgers. Or mulch can go up against the edger so it appears that there is lawn, then some mulch, then the beds.

Actually, I blend a lot of my beds. I don't have lawn, but swaths of pea stone. Some of the beds are raised 8" with dry stacked flat field stone, others drape over a stone wall or low embankment. The plants creep from the beds into the gravel, softening the definition. Columbines, sedums, houttaniya, chives that naturalized, creeping veronica and herbaceous potentilla and foxgloves all are sneaking their way into the gravel. I pretend not to notice.

I decided to use natural river rock boulders as edging... I wanted my planters around the edges of the yard separated from my lawn, and kept buying different edging and I felt they were all too ugly. I wanted a sense of nature, and yet some order. This worked great! Plus, there is no cementing, so I can move them if I like... It was really fun and quick setting it up.

I did have some issues with the grass that gets near or in between the rocks. But what I did is remove grass about 2 inches in front of the boulders, therefore making it easier to mow and no line trimmer necessary.

Using beach rocks and pea stone helped "smudge" boundaries between plants and pathway here. Beach stones and rocks found on my property provide the edges, filled in with pea gravel.

Here is a link that might be useful: All rock all the time

I'm a classic case of champagne taste/beer budget & looking for some alternative solutions for edging. I am eliminating ALL the grass in my front yard & replacing it with ground covers and landscape beds. Any creative ideas for edging the flower beds - both for definition, and to keep the ground cover out? I'm toying with the idea of using thin wood - wet it & then bend it into shape around the curved, abstract beds. Would love to do brick or even rock, but the budget won't stand it this year.

I have eliminated all the lawn in our front yard. I have several types of groundcovers and various beds. I do not have specific borders, I use wood chips (free from our utility provider) to mulch the beds where the groundcovers aren't thick. I like the natural borders the plants create as they grow; unlike sparse strands of grass, groundcover inching into a bed (IMO) creates a nice blending and looks softer to me.

Karen_G,
I should begin by saying that I don't have easy access to the box stores so I am afraid I am out of the loop when it comes to cost/pricing. A number of years ago I was looking for a way to keep some Hay Scented Fern out of a cutting garden and when I read slugs where repelled by copper the solution for me was to install copper sheeting. The garden was surrounded by a picket fence so I did not have lawn mower issues to contend with. The edging it self blended nicely year round and did a great job of keeping ferns, grass, etc, out of the garden. As for the slugs I swear in the early morning I could hear them laughing at my attempt. Years later when the cutting garden was dismantled and replaced with a shrub border I rolled up the sheet copper and decided I liked it as a piece of yard art. Katy
{{gwi:22481}}

If you use something like the copper sheeting, fold the top edge of it over a board and then flatten it into a hem or it will be sharp.

I like the idea of the copper sheeting - I'll price it next trip to the box stores, and my "railroad salvage" type store (Hood's, here in St. Louis.) I forgot to mention for folks that do want to use the vinyl strips - check out the floor/wall molding. By buying it on the roll, you can get it for about 60 cents a foot instead of $1.00, and they have several colors.

Someone suggested on a similar thread a while back to use the Trex edging. It's pretty pricey if you buy the edging, but you can use the Trex or similar type composite decking like batter boards, except they won't rot out the way wood will in time.

anyone tried or seen this?

I also thought of using the copper flashing, but heard it was sharp. Thought with toddlers around, might be a little too dangerous.

Here is a link that might be useful: edging

I have considered the permanent mulch but it is expensive! I put in the cheap plastic edging because ... it was cheap! I think that as a border between grass and mulch it works fine as long as no one sees it. My grass doesn't spread by stolons so that's part of why I like the cheap edging. If you need that space to keep a lawn in check the recycled plastic mats won't really help unless you have the real edge behind it and the mats are more about mowing.

The copper definitely needs to be folded over to be safe. Even the copper tape can give you a nasty cut if you apply it with out gloves. I found the tape just didn't stick to the wood of my raised beds and I ended up using the same iron phosphate bait that worked well in the other parts of my yard. I had more trouble with voles and mildew than with slugs and snails.

We lived in Allen, TX for 2-1/2 years and the first thing I did was have an extruded concrete edging installed. I've never bothered with edging in any of the other regions of the country we've lived in, but Bermuda grass has to be contained somehow. I'm glad we did it -- it saved us a lot of maintenance time.

The concrete was dyed a darkish brownish-red and was not particularly visible. It was also relatively inexpensive when compared to natural stone. The only drawback is that you can't change the sizes of your planting beds without tearing out the concrete. I ended up with 5000 s.f of planting area -- too much for one person to handle!

What if you folded the copper sheeting over something, like for instance a nylon rope or some ugly but durable plastic thing?