Are you talking about installing a solid border? or are you talking about maintaining a lawn up against a solid border?

I have an electric line trimmer that I use up against the concrete sidewalks and patio.

I meant an invisible border between an immaculate lawn on one side and immaculate garden on the other side. How to best do it with least maintenance effort.

What kind of grass are you keeping out? Fescue and rye can be kept out by carefully seeding when you seed. Bermuda and creeping bentgrass require Herculean effort to keep out of a garden. St Augustine, Kentucky bluegrass, and centipede require less effort than the others, but they will get in over the surface.

Lawn is mostly fescue, some rye, and little KBG. I am thinking of experimenting with deliberately adding some DWC to the lawn or will DWC invade the garden?

I like the look of Dutch white clover as a complete ground cover or mixed evenly through a yard. If it is growing in patches, though, it makes the lawn look weedy. It's been so long since I've even seen clover growing, I can't remember how aggressively it spreads.

Anyone using those 4" broad strips of plastic or metal that you dig in the border between lawn and garden? Or any other lawn edging implements that are supposed to be invisible and impenetrable?

I have some 3" composite edging & 4" rubber edging under my rock borders to keep the Bermuda at bay. Between that physical barrier & shade from the rocks above, I'd say it's 95% effective. With a stolon-free seeded grass I think it could be 100%.

Most artificial barriers like plastic edging that is hammered into the ground looks like crap after a couple of seasons. Freeze/thaw (in the north), lawn mower wheels, etc. eventually work the barrier out in places. Personally I don't like the look. I have seen some people use the thin metal barrier to keep mulch from spilling onto a walkway. That's something I wouldn't mind trying for my walk. Otherwise, I'd invest in an edger and run it twice a year if there's too much to edge by hand.

I always edge my bed.Doing this has allowed me to spread bermuda all through my yard.Ive been very successful in taking the sprouts that I pull out of the edge of my edging bed and digging a small hole in my yard and throwing them in it and covering it back up and watering it in.I always mulch the area I am pulling the sprouts from so the soil is very rich and the bermuda LOVES IT, plus its easy to pull the bermuda sprouts up.It is pain in the butt to do it like I do it but the results have been pretty good.At the rate I am going I figure I will have my yard(front and back) 100 % bermuda in 3-4 yrs from now.Pallets of bermuda sod ranges from $250-$500 in my area So I am saving ALOT of money and the yard is starting to look like a first class golf course :)

With that said I really dont want to keep doing this after I get my yard 100 % bermuda cause pulling these bermuda shoots is hard work on the back lol.On my other side of my yard I am having good results boarding it with monkey grass.The monkey grass gets so tall that bermuda just stops under it.Bermuda hates shady areas.

I wonder if selective watering - as distinct from area watering - would help maintain the edge between lawn and garden. Just water on the lawn side of the edge and water only the plants on the garden side, but try to dry out any grass on the garden side.

Of course, there is rain, so the selective watering won't be perfect, but in areas with not much rain, would it help with maintaining the edge between lawn and garden? Anyone tried it with a soaking hose buried in the soil on the lawn side of the edge? And targeted root watering of the plants on the garden side?

I have a similar question to the OP's original question.

What is the absolute minimum maintenance edge?

I am trying to decide what to do with a small patch of dirt, which is bang up next to a concrete edge. The patch is maybe 8' x 12', something like that.

Also, I strongly dislike the sound of motorized yard tools (ie air blowers and whackers ... I have zero experience with the riding mowers - not talking about that), and I am very, very motivated to avoid them.

Plus I am out of shape and no longer have a push mower (unless there is one in the garage somewhere - I fondly remember the sound).

In my imagination, I put a patch of lawn on a raised mound, with a gravel channel around it. And somehow it all stays put and I just drive the mower over the edge of the grass, and it all works.

That's a fantasy, right? This wouldn't actually work would it? And I can't even think of any other approach where there won't be an edge of some kind.

I think for someone like me, it will need to be raised beds and gravel. (But, can you ever get rid of gravel? What if next year, I want to put in grass?)

I am planning to go look at the UC site to see if there is magic grass that doesn't need to be mown ... but that too seems unlikely. Maybe a clover.

I am very fond of grass, and lawns ... but realistically I don't think I have the commitment or the resources.

Sorry if this is a boring question, or if it is rude to add on to an older post. (I don't hang out in Lawn Care much.)

Hmm, that is very interesting. Controlling grass with another groundcover = brilliant!! So ... you don't need to edge it specially with other equipment this way? (sorry if that's a dumb question) You just mow the grass?

Thats correct , just mow the grass, What I did was transplanted lirope. I have ALOT on my property. So I did this whole edge without buying plants. It was pretty long and curvy so took me 2-3 weeks to get it all finished., Doing it this way though was the lirope was small/young plants so since they was smaller they wasnt providing the shade so had to do some trimming of the bermuda trough the first of the summer., But yes when the lirope got mature/taller my work became easy, with just mowing, no edging.

Only negative is lirope likes to spread sideways. So I have a little growing in my bermuda lawn. Probaly will use roundup on it when the bermuda is dormant ,around jan 2021

Thanks!! This is much food for thought. I appreciate it.

Randy Man, would you please post a picture of the lirope and bermuda?

This was taken a week ago, This is my back yard. Have other sections with lirope in the front and sides of my house. I have 22,000 sq ft of bermuda total. I cut all the old off the lirope about a month ago

Wow I am a space cadet, I just asked about the same thing on a different thread, and I had totally forgotten this one!! A year has gone by and I haven't done any work on it yet. Come to think of it, I am mildly surprised it is September already. Ah well.

But more importantly, that looks like a pretty awesome way to edge a lawn. It is really helpful to see a photo.

That pic was when its was just started growing. Heres another ones just taken reecently

It looks great - sorry if this is a dumb question, but, do you ever have to edge it, or are you just careful when you mow, not to run them over???

It looks really lovely. I don't know if could get anything to look that good bc ours will have concrete on one side and there could be some shade involved too.