I laid mine flat on the dirt in a little ditch a little above the soil level. Some have already had soil build up around them. I just put the mower tire on the brick edging and drive. I do have spaces at curves and some weeds grow up in this area. I pull them out. It just defines and neatens the edge. I collected old brick from a house being torn down 20 years ago and still have a pile left that I plan to edge the bed I want to build on the other side of the driveway in the hopefully near future.

I place the bricks oriented like Mad Gallica’s and an outer edge of the black plastic lawn edging buried to the rim to keep the grass out. I set mine right at ground level, and both the brick gaps and the plastic edging are hidden by grass and plants in less than a season in most gardens.

"... I don’t like the V shape you see on the outer radius ..." Actually, we don't see it as there is no picture. Let pictures become full color before submitting them.

It sounds like what you are describing is a mowing strip, instead of the typical homespun garden brick stand-up "edging." While it can be installed in an end-to-end line, it looks much better and more professional if it's installed as a sailor course (side-by-side,) which would make the edge band 8" wide instead of 4" wide ... much more in scale with outdoor surroundings. (A 4" wide band tends to look weak and under powered.) If you have trouble easing it around a curve, try adjusting the bed to be a little larger so the curve is not as tight. The mowing strips are best placed on sand (like paver base sand) but if you have access to other sand, I'd go ahead and use it as this is not a critical situation. Set them flush with grade or slightly above, depending on what kind of grass you have. If you set too deep relative to the grass type, the grass may too easily grow over the brick.

I do as NHBabs does and add the economical black edging on the grass side of the bricks. It keeps the grass from growing between the bricks and gives a clean trouble free result.

Sorry no picture, yardvark. My phone started dying a slow death week ago. With the COVID virus situation, I was trying to make do. But we finally decided we had to go out and get me a new one. I got it yesterday. But now it's pouring down rain.

A sailor course is what I have been leaning toward, if I can't find a design that works better. It's twice as much brick and twice as much digging, however. The latter being more of concern.

I was hoping to find there might be a different design of laying out brick that I have not yet thought of. I thought of laying them out in a herringbone fashion, overlapping style: I could see that going around curves. I looked last night for photos of what I have in mind and couldn't find any. Though that might be very tricky to lay out well.

Square paving stones might look nice as edging. I'm thinking of the square granite cobbles you see sometimes as edging. But in concrete so they go with the rest of the patio.

"... It's twice as much brick and twice as much digging ..." And 10 times as good looking and functional!

Square, making an 8" band, will be harder to work with. It's fine going around curves. If it's not, your curves are too tight. If you show it in a picture, people can help solve easier.

Linnea -- This old gal has made both end-to-end and sailor course borders with bricks I got super cheap on Craig's List. The good thing about bricks is they're light weight and easy(ish) on my arthritic hands and bad back, and the work can be done a little bit at a time.

First I laid out the bricks until I was happy with the overall design. This took awhile as I kept changing my mind. Then I plunged a half-moon edger on either side of each brick to make a trench, moved the bricks out of the way, popped the dirt out from the trench, threw some paving sand in the bottom and set the bricks back in place. Once it looked sorta ok I threw some more sand in the cracks and used a broom to brush it in, hosed it down and added more sand as needed. Looks just fine -- not perfect but a big improvement over nothing.

Pro (ha-ha) tips: Don't make the ditch too deep because the bricks will probably settle over time. With the help of YouTube I figured out how to crudely cut bricks by hitting a straight-edge metal scraper with a hammer (emphasis on crudely). Lost a few bricks with this method but oh well.

My philosophy is garden projects don't have to be perfect. I prefer to think of them as rustic. Good luck on your project!