Edging Your Beds: How to Protect and Grow Your Landscape with Edging
Even if you’re not a landscaping expert, we can bet that you’re able to look at a landscape (commercial, residential, HOA, etc.), carefully evaluate it, and then tell us whether or not that landscape is a winner.
Even if you can’t exactly put your finger on why or why not this is true, you probably can easily decide if it’s a good design or a bad design, right?
Why do we think you can do this (even if you’ve got zero landscaping experience)? Because a great landscape starts with great design, and great design is something you can see, feel, and experience—no landscape experience required.
A big part of excellent design is clean lines, organized spaces, and distinctive areas that serve different purposes—like a sitting area, a flower bed, a vegetable garden, a bordered bush, etc. And while this can be accomplished through a ton of different techniques, one of the best and boldest ways to design a beautiful landscape is through the use of edging.
Not entirely sure about edging? We don’t blame you. Even though it’s a concept we’re all pretty much familiar with, not everyone knows exactly what edging is. That’s what we’re here to remedy. Keep reading!
What Exactly is Edging, Anyway?
Edging is a landscaping strategy that creates crisp lines between flower beds, trees, turf, and other areas to distinguish the unique sections of a landscape. Edging is usually most visible between turf and a flower bed, but it can certainly be implemented anywhere in a landscape!
There are a lot of options out there for edging. You can go with a basic edging technique like a simple trench to high-end decorative rocks to wooden edging and more.
Why Edging Landscaping Beds Important for the Health of Your Landscape
Edging does more than just look beautiful (though, it definitely adds to a landscape’s aesthetic, that’s for sure). It also is hugely beneficial for the health of a landscape—your trees, shrubs, flower beds, turf, and more can all benefit from edging!
Here are just a few of the benefits edging can offer your landscape:
- Edging creates a safe zone around tree trunks and plants. When you create and maintain a strict edge around your bases, you’re protecting your valuable trees, plants, flowers, shrubs, and more from maintenance that could occur from lawnmowers, hedgers, clippers, and more.
- When you edge beds and trees, you cut down on the loss of your materials. When you add in a defined edge along your beds or trees, you’re creating a zone where things stay in place—mulch, wood chips, soil, etc., all of it is sort of fenced in with an attractive edge.
- Remember that safe zone we talked about? This is especially true for your trees. If you bring mechanical equipment too close to your tree’s bark and roots, you could cause irreparable damage, leave your trees vulnerable, and even stagnate their growth. With an edge, though, you’re setting up a makeshift boundary—it’s the perfect aesthetic addition and
- Edging keeps your turfgrass and other landscaping areas separate. When you create a defined edge, there’s no possibility of your landscaping sections blending together.
- Edging can help corral loose materials if you’re using them for a walkway—pavement, gravel, even mulch. It will make sure that the steps you take are sure-footed.
The Top Tips & Tricks for Edging Methods & Maintenance
Believe it or not, there’s a right way to edge and there’s a wrong way to edge—actually, scratch that, there are several wrong ways to edge. But don’t let that overwhelm you. All you need is a little correct information to get your edging process going—and that’s exactly what we’re here to help you do!
Prepare, Prepare, Prepare
And did we mention prepare? Creating the perfect edge is all about the preparation. Take a walk around your yard and sketch out your desired design (or, have us work with you to create the ultimate edge design!). And don’t forget to prepare your supporting edge soil with weed deterrent! The last thing you want is to get your edges just right and then have to deal with unexpected weed growth!
Just The Right Height
Don’t go too high with your edge—but don’t go too low, either. Think of this as the Goldilocks porridge situation (not too hot, not too cold, but just right). We recommend an edge depth of anywhere between 2-4 inches in order to get the aesthetic you’re looking for while reaping all of the edging benefits.
Know Your Edging Options
One of the most common edging options is called spade edging—a manual process where you use a spade to hand-dig the bed edge. And while this option is popular, it’s certainly not the only one available. In fact, there are plenty of ways to create the perfect crisp edging line. If you want to take your edging past the all-natural aspect, you can use things like:
Like we said, spade-cut edging is the simplest type of edging. All it requires is spade digging a trench around the outside of the bed, tree, or area you’re trying to set apart. That being said, you can also check out masonry or wood edging if you want to get super fancy!
Create a Maintenance Schedule & Stick to It
Newsflash—your landscape is alive. That means it needs regular maintenance. You know this about your lawn, your trees, your plants, and your flowers, so your edges shouldn’t be any different! Create a regular maintenance schedule and stick to it for optimal results. Need some help in that department? We’ve got you covered. At Landcrafters, we can design and maintain the perfect edges for your landscape!Excited to get your edge on but aren’t sure where to start? As we said, we can definitely help you with that. At Landcrafters, we know a thing or two (or three or four) about edging, and we’re absolute experts when it comes down to designing a landscape (edges and all) that can make all your hopes and dreams come true.
No matter what kind of edging you’re looking for—and no matter what kind of maintenance schedule—Landcrafters is there to tackle it all (one flower bed at a time). Want to chat with us about your specific landscape needs? We’d love to! Give us a call at (727)-201-3540 or reach out to us directly on our website. We can’t wait to help you create the landscape of your dreams!
Michael Tomaino
