To achieve a laidback garden, you often need to do a little work beforehand. It may seem counterintuitive, but to be a laidback gardener, you don’t have to be lazy… you have to be hardworking! Yes, you heard me right. By preparing your garden well from the start, you’ll enjoy a beautiful, low-maintenance landscape for years to come.
A good example is garden edging. In my opinion, it’s an essential part of preparing a flower bed. I even install it before planting a single plant.
What Is the Purpose of Edging in the Garden?
There are many gardens that don’t have borders… and they look great. In fact, borders aren’t absolutely necessary. Many gardeners prefer to trim the edges of their flower beds with a half-moon spade once or twice a year to prevent the lawn from spreading and invading their plantings.
As I walk around, I see lots of flower beds without borders… and no one has bothered to redefine their contours. As a result, they are often overrun by grass and weeds. In these cases, even mulch is not enough to keep the intruders out. Yet all it would take is a garden edging to avoid this maintenance for more than 20 years—the typical lifespan of a well-installed plastic edging.
Setting Boundaries
But borders aren’t just for separating plants from the lawn. They’re also useful for defining other areas of your landscape, such as decorative stone or gravel areas. If you have a flower bed adjacent to a gravel area, you will soon discover that the soil mixes with the gravel, plants migrate, and weeds grow rampantly. Without a separation between a lawn and a gravel path, you will end up with a gravel lawn, plain and simple.
Finally, the last advantage of borders is purely aesthetic. A well-placed border draws a clear line between areas: here, the lawn; there, the flower bed; a little further on, the gravel path. This visual division structures the space. It gives the garden a more fluid, almost instinctive feel, like a frame around a work of art. Your eye immediately knows what to look at, where one area begins and where another ends. Even a laidback garden, with its natural look and plants growing happily together, benefits from being surrounded by a border: it gives an impression of organization… in a deliberately slightly disorganized space.
Types of Garden Edging
There are all kinds of different products that can be used as garden edging, but you can also get creative with recycled materials.
Plastic and Aluminum
Among the least expensive options are classic black plastic edging. It’s not the most attractive choice, but when properly installed and once the plants are well established, it does the job perfectly.
Warning: Plastic edging can release microplastics into the soil, which disrupt soil life—including earthworms and essential microfauna—as well as soil structure and fertility. Although it seems unlikely that vegetables will absorb these microplastics, these indirect effects on soil function call for the use of more sustainable materials such as aluminum, stone, or wood, when possible.
Personally, I prefer aluminum edging. It’s a little more expensive, but very thin and therefore much less noticeable. It’s also flexible enough to follow the curves of the garden while holding its shape much better than plastic edging. There’s even black-painted aluminum edging that’s almost invisible when buried at the right depth, but it can be harder to find.
Both options are fairly easy to install: simply dig a trench to the correct depth, then secure the edging to the ground using landscaping nails, approximately every 30 cm (12 inches).
More High-End Options… and Decorative Ones Too
Otherwise, there are all kinds of other products that are more expensive and a little more complex to install, but which can be very attractive depending on the style of your landscaping. These include Corten steel, precast or molded concrete edging, and natural stone. All are good options, provided they blend in well with the style of your existing garden. These edging options are very durable and, unlike flexible edging, are designed to be seen rather than hidden.
Wood
Wooden borders can be an attractive option, especially for more natural or rustic designs. You can use boards, beams, vertical logs, or even reclaimed wood sleepers. Wood adds warmth and blends well into a vegetable garden or country garden. However, it is important to note that it deteriorates over time, especially when in constant contact with moisture. To extend its life, you can choose a naturally durable wood (such as cedar) or treat the wood (avoiding toxic products if edible plants are nearby). This is a relatively easy solution to implement, but it will require a little more maintenance or replacement in the long term.
Modular Borders
Modular borders made of rigid plastic or recycled rubber are gaining popularity, especially among those who want a quick installation. They are sold in preformed sections that can be snapped together or stuck directly into the ground, often without digging. Their flexibility allows them to follow curved or straight lines, depending on the layout. As an added bonus, they are often made from recycled materials, adding an eco-friendly touch to the garden. However, since they are installed on the surface, they offer less resistance to invasive roots, especially those of grass. I recommend using them with caution, especially if you need to contain grass.
Recovered Materials
For DIY enthusiasts and resourceful gardeners, it is entirely possible to create borders from recycled materials. Old bricks, broken tiles, upside-down buried glass bottles, pieces of wood, found stones… the possibilities are endless. In addition to being economical and environmentally friendly, these borders give your garden a unique and creative style. That said, some of these borders will be more aesthetic than functional—they won’t hold back grass or adventurous roots as well—so it’s best to choose the right materials.
Root Barrier
In some cases, a simple border is not enough to contain plants with particularly vigorous roots. In this case, a root barrier can be installed, often made of rigid plastic, buried vertically at a depth of 30 to 60 cm (12 to 24 inches) depending on the species to be controlled.
5 Key Elements of Effective Edging
In addition to durability and aesthetics, there are a few essential elements that make for an effective border.
1. Sufficient Height and Depth
An effective border must extend deep enough into the ground to block invasive roots, such as those of grass. If it is too short or simply laid on the surface, rhizomes will pass underneath without hindrance. A depth of at least 10 to 15 cm (4 to 6 inches) is recommended, especially to contain vigorous plants.
2. Solid Anchoring
Even a well-chosen border will not stay in place without proper anchoring—or at least a stable base. For flexible or modular edging, use stakes or landscaping nails approximately every 30 cm/12 inches. For heavier edging, such as concrete or stone, the depth of installation and weight, combined with a well-compacted bed (of gravel or stone dust), will ensure stability. The important thing is that the edging does not move with frost or over time. Otherwise, it will eventually lift, lean, or quietly disappear under the vegetation.
3. Tight Joints
The joints between two sections of edging are often the weak link. If they are not properly fitted or overlapped, they leave an opening for roots or soil to enter. A well-fitted connection, sometimes reinforced with anchoring, ensures a continuous and effective barrier.
4. Good Rigidity or Stability
A border that is too flexible will quickly lose its shape, especially in loose soil or if it has to hold materials such as gravel in place. It is better to choose a product that will retain its shape, even after several seasons. If the border is flexible, good anchoring becomes even more crucial.
5. Compatibility With Materials to Be Contained
Depending on what you want to keep in place—grass, mulch, gravel, soil—the edging should be well suited to its intended use. For example, for a decorative stone path, you need edging that is high enough to prevent stones from scattering and stable enough to prevent it from lifting over time. To contain the lawn, it must be deep enough below the ground to block invasive roots.
Low Maintenance
Once in place, maintenance is minimal. Just a quick check in the spring to make sure your edging hasn’t moved with the frost, an occasional straightening… and you’re set for several seasons, even decades.
So yes, it takes a little effort at first. But good edging is a good investment: you pay in sweat today to be laidback tomorrow. If you’re going to do it, you might as well do it right!
I have use the black plastic edging in several places. Some of it has heaved out of the ground, some not. Some has moved so that less is in in the ground and the round top is well above the level of the garden and grass. I recently discovered the stakes with a hook at the top to hold the edging in place. We’ll see. The other problem with this is that it doesn’t easlily install on a slope.