27 Beautiful Garden Edging Ideas
Garden edging is a great way to make your yard look beautiful and keep flower beds contained. Try one of thesegarden edging ideas to update your curb appeal.
If you have been looking for ways to increase the beauty of your lawn. You may want to consider landscape edging. . Adding edging that works well with the style and feel of your home can add to the structure and beauty of your lawn and increase the overall curb appeal. Whether you opt for a modern or rustic look, edging will visually separate your grass from your garden beds and make your landscaping look intentional and well-designed. Here are 27+ garden edging ideas, including both the conventional and the innovative!
What are the benefits of Landscape Edging?
- Defines a walkway or path clearly
- Keeps mulch in place
- a great way to show of great plantings of flowers and shrubs
- It can compliment or contrast the exterior of your home adding variety to your curb appeal
- Helps to give you a guide for mowers and trimming
- Stops invasive plants from spreading beyond the flower bed
- Can adapt to any needed shape, straight or curved
- Is a great place to show some creativity!
What General Types of Edging can I use?
- Wood Landscape Edging: From timbers to scrap woods, so many options see below for more ideas.
- Composite Landscape Edging: Made from recycled wood products and offers the texture of woodgrain.
- Metal Landscape Edging: can give a good edge without being totally obvious.
- Plastic Landscape Edging: Usually available at stores.
- Stone, Brick or Concrete Landscape Edging: formal and elegant
- Upcycled/Recycled Edging: Where your creativity can shine, Check out the garden hose option below.
Is it hard to install?
For the most part, installing edging is a simple project. Make sure the ground is soft and not soaked(ie muddy!) or frozen. Just cut a shallow trench or groove into the sod and lay the edging into the cut area. Some edging is set onto or pushed into the ground. Plastic roll and metal edging need to be secured with stakes. We also have a great tutorial for a fun character shaped garden bed.
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Get started with this tip for Professional Edging
This gardening edging idea involves no materials to edge the garden beds, but it does require some specialized tools and manpower. This tutorial shows you how to edge your gardens by Funky Junk Interiors, using a half moon edger and hand held clippers. The secret to professional-looking edging is to create a shallow trench with your soil along the edges.
Concrete and Brick Edging
Concrete Edges
Concrete garden edging is a more permanent way to separate your garden beds from your lawn. This type of edging also helps keep mulch in place. You can customize your concrete edging in any way – you can decide the width and the height of the edging with the help of this tutorial by Bob Vila. After the concrete has dried, you could paint it or stain it.
Paver Edging
Paver stones, or brick garden edging is classic and always a great option. This tutorial shows you how to lay pavers by The Family Handyman is a way that makes it easy for you to use your lawn mower to mow your lawn without having to use a weed wacker on the edges. Plus it adds a beautiful visual texture to the line breaking up the beds and turf.
Raised-Bed Border
Try a combination of stones and plastic edging to create a beautiful and layered garden edging. Here’s a great tutorial that shows you how to achieve this look.
Eco-Border Landscape Edging
For an easy option that requires no digging or extensive prep work, check out eco-border landscaping edging. It’s made of recycled tires, bendable, and easy to install. It comes in several colors and styles, making it easy for you to customize your landscaping to your taste. And I have to mention that I love the white garden stones or pebbles used as mulch to really make those beds pop.
Modern Concrete Edging
Here’s another tutorial on how to DIY concrete edging, but with a decidedly modern feel. This is a very economical idea that looks great and will last for a long time.
Terra Cotta Edging
For a traditional look, consider terra cotta edging. Another option is plastic garden edging with a Terra Cotta design, which will do the job just as well and will be easy to clean.
Diagonal Brick Edging
Lay bricks diagonally to achieve a striking textured effect like this beautiful backyard patio with a common landscaping material. Learn how to get a similar look from Lowe’s.
The blue-gray color of bluestone looks great paired with a bright green lawn. Lay bluestone tile or pavers at ground level for easy mowing.
Concrete Paver Edging
Square concrete pavers can act as edging when you place them in a check pattern and plant gardens in the empty squares. This can be a great way to create a walkway and several garden beds at the same time.
Limestone Edging
If the facade of your home includes limestone, limestone edging would look great in your lawn. You could stack limestone stones to create raised garden beds.
Rock and Wood Edging
Rock Edging
Rocks are often used as edging, but you can take it to the next level by using two different kinds and sizes of rocks. This is a great example of how two different types of rocks combine to create a beautiful border.
Wood Block Edging
Cut wood blocks into two sizes and arrange them to create a unique design. This landscape edging example also includes another idea: cut branches that are sunk into the ground. So pretty.
Landscape Timber Edging
Pressure-treated landscape timbers can be used to edge a garden bed. They are long-lasting and inexpensive, but they shouldn’t be used with garden beds that contain vegetables or fruit.
Logs as Edging
If you live near a forest, you probably have access to a lot of logs laying around. Collect them to edge a pathway on your property…
…or use them to edge your garden beds for a fun and rustic look. Stack them like lincoln logs, like in the example above.
If you’ve got scrap wood laying around in the garage, chop them up and put them to good use by making scrap wood garden edging. It’s a pretty easy DIY for a fun and casual look.
Simple Rock Border
If you live in an area that is full of rocks, collect river rocks and pebbles to create a simple rock border. You can also purchase landscape rocks from a home improvement store too. Here’s how to maintain a rock border, hint use a weed barrier!
Pallet Wood Edging
You can easily find pallet wood for free or cheap, so why not use it to edge your garden beds? This pallet wood edging tutorial is so easy because it only requires a few strategical cuts and some paint or stain.
Tree Trunks Edging
If you have to cut down a tree, you could put the trunk to good use and cut it up to make a beautiful garden edge. This garden edging project was done for a sandpit but could easily be used for a garden bed.
Railroad Ties
Railroad ties can make a beautiful structured plant bed. To build the planter beads simply drive metal stakes or rebar through the ties directly into the ground, this will anchor them in place. if the bed is longer than one tie, drive stakes in the ends of each railroad tie to join ties together. You can also make your planters taller by adding a second course of ties on top of the first.
Fence
A small fence can also act as a border between beds. However you may need to add additional edging at the bottom to keep plants from creeping in.
Other Unique Garden Edges
Painted Cinder Blocks
Line your garden beds with cinder blocks and make them pretty by painting them in your favorite color. Plant flowers or herbs inside the cinder blocks to create mini raised garden beds!
Recycled Water Hoses
Weave colorful water hoses around metal poles that are dug into the ground for and unique way to edge your garden beds. Arrange your water hoses by color to create a surprisingly beautiful ombre effect.
Wine Bottle Garden Border
Put your collection of empty glass bottles to good use by edging your garden beds with them. This can be a really pretty option, especially if you have wine bottles in different colors.
Cast Iron Edging
Cast iron edging is a great looking and practical garden edging option. It’s maintenance-free, durable, and easy to install.
Steel Edging
Steel edging is thin and strong, giving your garden beds a modern look with minimal maintenance. It’s especially gorgeous when used with square garden beds via Landscaping Network.
Groundcover Edging
Groundcover, or low-lying plants, can be used instead of landscaping materials to edge your garden beds. It’s a beautiful, romantic look. Here are some recommendations for easy-growing groundcovers.
With so many options for garden edging, you’re sure to find one that works the best for your lawn. What other garden edging ideas have you seen that aren’t mentioned here?
Landscape Edging Ideas FAQ:
What is landscape edging?
Simply put it is the division between lawn and garden beds. As you can see from the options above the style can range wildly and using your creativity is a great way to.
How deep should landscape edging or lawn edging be?
Most metal edging is going to be deep enough to be installed 4-6 inches into the ground and still have a few inches above ground. But the depth really depends on the look you are going for. If you are using a weed barrier in your flower beds, you may not need to dig too deep.
How high should lawn edging be?
This is up to you. It can be both lower or higher than the lawn it is separating. It will really depend mostly on the material you are edging with. A couple considerations on height are if the garden bed is up against the house you do not want to raise it to high as that could allow water to damage the house interior or foundation. Also, if you have a bed with an existing tree, raising the level of soil on exposed bark can damage or even kill a tree over time, so be sure to do a little research on your existing trees before raising a bed too much.
For more gardening and outdoor ideas, check out:
2×4 Outdoor Projects
10 Edible Plants to Grow Indoors
Tips for Winterizing Your Summer Garden
Patio Tips
Pallet Projects
Sprinkler Activities
30 Raised Garden Bed Ideas
Please pin these ideas for later:
Originally Posted on 6.4.2015 // Updated 4.22.2020 //3.11.2022
Featured and title image via Better Homes and Gardens.
I’m Elisa and I live in Austin, Texas with my husband and our two little girls. I used to teach reading and writing, but now I stay at home with my two kiddos and read and write in my spare time. I also love to undertake DIY projects, find new recipes on Pinterest, and dream about someday finally completing our home. Above all, I love to learn about new things and sharing my new-found knowledge with others.
Hey,
Great post, I haven’t used concrete for garden edging, I must give it a try next time. Right now I am using a steel edging to put my plants in place.
Keep it up
Zac
Thanks for the great article. Don’t know if anyone has mentioned, but the link for the pallet edging doesn’t work. It just sends you to a “page doesn’t exist” message.
Thank you for letting us know.
Great gardening ideas! I’m still putting up a board for inspiration once I begin working on my backyard.
I really appreciate you for publishing this blog here garden edging ideas; it’s really a helpful and very useful for us. This is really appreciated that you have presented this data over here, I love all the information shared. Great article!
You never stop amazing me. I love these different, yet unique and beautiful edgings. Thank you for given us, your followers much to choose from. You rock!
Too bad I cannot save your post about edging. After 10 times trying to save it on Pinterest, I gave up. Perhaps because it is from 2020? Really sad…
Hi Laura — thanks for the comment. Can you tell me more of what happened (error message, etc), what type of device you are using, and how you were saving to Pinterest (from the button in the blog post, browser extension, share function, etc). We’d love to look into this more since we’re not seeing a problem on our end.
In the meantime, you can repin from here, hopefully: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/270145677640060452/