Lawn Edging... What works? What's not worth bothering with?

uncle_rufus · 16 Feb 2017 at 13:58

Hey all,

Have decided one project for this spring is going to be to edge our lawn (or perhaps more correctly our flowerbeds)... The grass keeps spreading into them and it looks messy... There seem to be a lot of different products out there so I'm curious what people's experiences have been. The only requirements off the top of my head:

1. No concreting, nothing permanent/semi-permanent... I want to be able to (with some effort) change the boundaries in the future if I decide to widen or extend existing beds...

2. Probably not made of wood; would prefer a material that won't eventually rot...

3. I'd also like to top the flowerbeds with gravel/stones to try and discourage weeds etc. - I expect this probably means I want slightly raised edging but not sure...

Cheers in advance!

kinobestew123 · 16 Feb 2017 at 14:13

What are your edges currently like? Is your lawn flat or does it sink downwards at the edges towards the flowerbeds?

For me, I'd want something that was easy o mow/strim along.

A friend of mine put large square cobbles along the edge which gave a hard surface for his lawnmower to run along. Seemed to work quite well. I think it was quite a bit of work though.

uncle_rufus · 16 Feb 2017 at 15:37

It's pretty much flat... the beds are slightly lower since they were made by cutting out sections of the grass (but I imagine after adding stones/gravel it'll be more or less level again)...

I did think about mowing/strimming, but then realised that currently I don't tend to mow or strim right up to the 'bed edges because there are often plants and things sticking out that I don't want to accidentally shred... so I tend to just strim the gaps and then use shears for the other bits

I saw these things online which are designed to look like little bits of slate - sort of "T" shaped as if it's 3 bits of slate with a spike in the middle, made of a tough ABS plastic. The reviews seem to suggest that although they're not as sturdy as the manufacturer would have you believe if you pre-poke the holes for the spike they might be okay... not sure though

kinobestew123 · 17 Feb 2017 at 11:28

They sound interesting. Do they all connect to each other or do you have to push lots of them in? My worry about things like that is that after a couple of years they can all start moving and look scruffy.

Sorry I can't be much more help.

uncle_rufus · 17 Feb 2017 at 11:33

I don't think they connect directly, so you've got to push in each section (but they're short sections which I guess allows you to incorporate some different angles; not quite flowing curves but close enough if you've got any sort of large-radius sweeps going on)... I get where you're coming from and also don't want them to look naff after a few years but I wondered if you pushed them far enough into the ground hopefully they'd stay fairly solid

Derek W · 17 Feb 2017 at 13:24

Depending on how much you need to edge this may be of use https://www.everedge.co.uk/ I had looked at this myself but opted for railway sleepers instead.

uncle_rufus · 17 Feb 2017 at 14:44

Pringle W said:
Depending on how much you need to edge this may be of use https://www.everedge.co.uk/ I had looked at this myself but opted for railway sleepers instead.

Ooo I like the look of this... will have a read up on it later, cheers!

Gimpymoo · 18 Feb 2017 at 14:58

Watching the thread as I need to do something similar in my garden.

I think I am going to cut out then line the border with some ground control sheeting.

uncle_rufus · 27 Mar 2017 at 13:29

Well I'm going to bump the thread now as it's gotten to the time of year to think about doing this stuff... thinking of going with Ever-Edge and now planning to do a 1.5 - 2' border around the entire edge of the lawn, with round insets for our tree and our bench... probably 3 or 4 packs of 5m EverEdge should do it but I'll have to measure... Gravel I figure I can just order a ~800kg bag from B&Q and have it dropped off...

The only question now is that I also wanted to hire a mechanical aerator to do the lawn with (plus some bags of very sandy-mixed topsoil for dressing)... can't decide if it would be better to do that first or afterwards...