Landscape edging is important for zoning the areas in your garden, holding in soil or simply designing your walkway. Garden design is an important concept of landscape design. This is creates a unique edge to your garden. Bordering your garden might be the best way of giving it an elegant look. Creativity and imagination is important when choosing right edging for your garden. There is a variety of garden edging materials you could use right from the free to recycled to the types available commercially. However, it is important to choose materials that compliment your design and suit you financially.
To make things easier you should choose materials that are readily available, relatively inexpensive and easy to maintain and replace. Avoid materials that will need painting or greasing or will incur extra cost to maintain the anticipated look. Most commonly used materials are bricks, stones and concrete. You could still opt for a more unique garden bordering materials like used metal beams, old car tires and used plastic bottles to mention but a few.
Their ease of availability makes them relatively cheap or sometimes they are free. These are also available to purchase. They are at salvage stores, landfills or waste dumps. Using crushed stones, smooth pebbles and even bricks will give you a beautiful low-maintenance border. You can never go wrong with boulders provided, they are of similar size, shape and color with an even spacing.
It is arguably one of the cheapest methods of garden edging. You do not need to find or shop for any materials. Tools are required create a Victorian trench around plant beds. Creating cuts that are vertical along your lawn edges speaks nothing short of simplicity. Victorian trench is not so demanding since you simply make vertical edges along lawn boarders, removes soil at given angle (45-degrees) and 3-4 inches deep. Use a rake to smoothen the remaining soil sloping it towards the plants at the edges.
Lumbering materials are easily available and free. Use logs or branches from your home. Find places that are giving away wooden pallets or a trip to the timber yard could cost you a few dimes. Reuse pieces of wood from your old fence panels or borrow from a friend who is replacing theirs. Saw the wood to desired shapes and preferences then use them to create a border for your plants. You could use woods that are rot-resistant or use preservatives instead.
Using materials from your garden give your landscape a more natural look. Tree bark, chips of wood, straws, grass and old shredded newspapers are definitely easy to find and replace at the same time. Purchasing a bag of mulch is cheap. Hardware stores, timber yards, tree nurseries and landscape suppliers are the right places to find mulch. In poorly drained soils, avoid using mulch. You do not want to create a swamp of mulch.
There is a variety of materials that can be recycled. In design, there is always room for creativity and surprise. These materials might not need much sourcing or purchasing like most of the other materials. You can acquire them in your garage, storage or for free from other sources. Empty plastic bottles neck-down can used to create an edge that is unique and still attractive at the same time. Other recycled materials include broken plates, old car tires, metal reams and beams, bicycle rims, clay pots, coconut shells, old pipes or rail beams.
Written by Clark Jones, owner of Tree Frog Complete Grounds Maintenance. Tree Frog is the best company for landscaping in Columbia, MO.
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