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Give Your Garden The Edge

Give your garden the edge

Garden edging. It’s something we get a lot of questions about.

Edging serves a practical purpose in your garden, keeping everything where it should be, but it can also be an attractive and creative feature, defining a border, adding texture, structure and colour and drawing attention to all the right places.

“Edging is there for a reason; keeping the soil and mulch in the garden beds and those pesky lawn runners from taking over the garden, but it also plays an important role in the overall look of your garden,” says Craig Turner, Landscape Designer and Co-Director of The Garden Planners.

When choosing edging you need to select a product that suits the design of your garden, after that, the choices are only limited by your imagination and your budget.

Here’s a few options to consider.

Timber

Simple products such as Treated Pine, which is termite resistant, make a great divider for straight gardens. Generally purchased in six metre lengths they can be placed flush with the lawn providing a nice edge for your mower wheel or whipper snipper. It’s a cheap, practical option but isn’t going to add anything much aesthetically to your garden.

Brick

Bricks are great for straight or gently curved garden beds sweeping through lawns.

“I love brick edging,” says Craig. “Installed correctly it looks fantastic and it’s a great way to use up left-over bricks if you’ve built a new home – recycling at it’s best.”

Bricks need to be laid on a firm base of compacted gravel and mortar or concrete; once the base is solid there are loads of pattern options.

“Side-by-side gives you a larger brick face which is great visual feature. It’s also a good for maintenance providing a neat mowing strip. I’d avoid end-on-end. It doesn’t have the same polished look and doesn’t really provide enough depth.”

Steel

Steel is great as it comes in so many profiles and styles making it super versatile. Whether you use galvanised, stainless or the new, on point, trendy Corten Steel, you’ll be able to create practical and attractive edges.

“Steel edging is our favourite option. We like to use FormBoss™. It’s stronger than aluminium, easy to shape into anything from intricate curves to endless straight lines and holds its shape really well.”

FormBoss™ is also really economical. The initial outlay is less than options like plate steel, aluminium and concrete, and because it lasts so well you avoid the cost (and backache) of reinstalling every couple years.

Image from FormBoss™

Check out the latest The Nitty Gritty by The Garden Planners video with our friends from Rock Solid Gardening Supplies in Echuca discussing why this product is fast becoming the number one choice.

Plastic

“If we’re talking edging we have to mention plastic, but it’s an option we’d really recommend you avoid,” says Craig.

Why? Plastic edging is generally dug into the garden with flimsy pegs and left above the ground to battle all the weather elements, including heat, which in our climate will bend the plastic and pull the pegs out of the ground in no time.

Its high profile means it often gets hit by the whipper snipper, or other garden tools and ends up split, cracked and looking pretty ordinary.

“These days there are so many great options to choose from that look amazing and will fit most budgets,” says Craig.

 

P.S. We’re often asked how high edging needs to be to keep birds from flicking mulch everywhere. Unfortunately, you’d need to build the Great Wall of China to stop our black birds! We don’t even try, but we have a few other tricks to deter them. Stay tuned for future blog posts where we’ll share our top tips.

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