Edging

What do you all edge your gardens with? My beds are either wooden logs from trimmed trees, stones, and a couple of small areas have brick edging.

I'm hoping I can replace the wood this year because most of it is rotting away. My source for stone and used bricks (the local dump :-) has closed up and I'm at a loss finding a material that won't cost a lot. That flimsy plastic edging really doesn't work well in my zone and it's always lifting up. I was thinking of trying to cast my own edging stones from cement but I'm not sure I want to take on such a project. I have a lot of area to cover and I'm wondering how time consuming & back breaking it would be. I was thinking I'd use aluminum loaf pans or maybe plastic window boxes as molds

Anyone have any other suggestions ...... or experience working with cement?

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I edge the landscaping in front of my office-house with a giant cedar log from a tree I cut down last month.

Trish uses brick for her "circle garden". She is also collecting stones out of the gardens to use as borders elsewhere.

In my main garden, I don't use a border. Instead, I have a 4" wide and 6" deep trench dug. This prevents the grass from growing through the air into the garden. I think it looks nice and neat and tidy, and I can mow right over the trench with the mower.

Dave

My husband likes to use landscape timbers one or two high. I know they can run into money, but we do a little each year and three years ago we did some raised beds with 12 inch treated boards for flowers.

I don't know how into the "trash to treasure" you are, but I've seen some interesting boarders on HGTV. Bowling balls, glass bottles (wine or beer...some were only half buried, some were buried to almost the bottom).

Trish

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Poppysue - re Dave's suggestion. That's how we do it back home in England but I do understand that with some raised beds you need to keep the soil in the bed and not seep into the lawn, especially with the heavy downpours of rain.

I also use logs to line a path, especially since most of them are winding. The newst path put in was with river rock stones and pea gravel. DH is cutting me 3 inch circular log cuts in lieu of stepping stones. I use broken up concrete from sidewalks..drive anywhere into the city and someone is getting a new sidewalk put in. There are a few places to get red bricks and cobblestone (from the trolley lines in the street) for free. Of course, everything is labor intensive and back breaking!
Trish
ps..I got some cake molds from the Dollar Store and used them for concrete-making stepping stones. The kids liked having dinosaurs rove through the gardens..lol.

One idea which i have been waiting 2 years to get round to doing on the edge of one of my borders is weaved Willow edging. Mind you im only talking 5-6 inches tall, and it's not too strong. But it gives a lovely cottage garden natural look, and im told it's quite easy to do yourself.

Wow look at the great ideas! Many of the gardens I've toured in Maine have the cut edge that Dave mentioned. I love the look but with my lawn weeds, like ground ivy, I'd never be able to keep a clean edge. Brook mailed me about making a wooden form from 2x4s to make a continuous cement edge. I like that idea but it just seems too "permanent" - I'm always expanding and adding for more space. I found an article with a similar idea ~ just digging out a trench and pouring the cement right into the ground - http://www.gardengatemagazine.com/tips/25tip11.html - again this seems too permanent. The junk ideas are great! I saw in a magazine where a lady used china plates to edge the garden. She just stuck them in so half of the plate was above ground. Kinda neat but a disaster waiting to happen in my yard. I'm leaning towards stones and hoping I stumble onto a good supply somewhere. I placed a wanted add on my local servers classified and maybe I'll hit the jackpot.

I also found a good page about making cement blocks on Caroline Moore's site -
http://www.transy.edu/homepages/wells/blocks.htm - I may try this if I don't find the rocks I need. It'd probably take forever but I could just work at it a few at a time. It looks kinda of fun anyway.

Daisy Chain - I did a wattle fence in my herb garden a few years back. It was really cool looking and easy to do. I just pounded in little post and weaved the twigs through them. It lasted a couple of years but the wood eventually rotted and I kept breaking it when I dragged the hose around. I never did rebuild it.

I saw a cement mold at Home Depot that can be used to make a 'cobble stone' walk. Each of the 'stones' is separate, and could be moved once it was hardened. I was thinking of trying this to make some 'stones' to edge my flower beds. The mold is 2'X 2' and is shaped like 8 to 10 'stones' with a inch or so gap between them at the top, and about 1/2" at the bottom. Don't know if anything like this is available near you. HD had them in the area with cement here.

Try local contractors for the bricks. We are slowly replacing the black plastic edging all around the yard with brick. We pick it up at different places when contractors have extra, or are demolishing buildings. They usually don't care if you pick up the pieces as long as you talk to them first.

Yesterday we went to a nearby farm that is owned by some folks who let us pick up rock for free - it helps them because it removes some of their lawn-mowing hassles, so they're glad to get rid of it.

Now before you start wishing that rock was that plentiful in your area, you should know that we have too much rock here - putting in a swimming pool requires the use of dynamite, no kidding.

I used to have stones as edging round some of my beds but one of my former "landscape" gardeners removed them. We had collected them from various holidays (mainly in Scotland I think). Most of them were quartz and they were pretty. Now that they've gone I've noticed the soil spills back onto my paths again. We used these stones as edging on our two island beds. We had a plastic trim round our lawn but it does deteriorate eventually. I've now gone for having new edges dug on the lawns with a slight gap between the lawn and the border. But I'm pretty sure the soil will eventually collapse back to its original location andd they will need redoing. So I'm also looking for a more permanent solution.