Garden design borders ideas: Design, Style, Planting And Maintenance

Creative Edges for Garden Borders and Paths

To give your garden a finished look, think about edging your borders. There are a bunch options, and the one you choose will depend on the style of your yard and the shape of your flower beds. Check out these creative and often inexpensive landscape edging ideas for inspiration.

Verdance Landscape Architecture

1. Lay bricks flush with the surface. Bricks make a neat edge for your flower beds. For a streamlined look, lay them flush with the ground. This is particularly effective when the border is next to a lawn since the mower blades can easily move over it.

These bricks separate the borders from the path and allow the flowers to hang over the walkway without blocking it.

Bricks can be an inexpensive edging material. There are online tutorials that show you how to lay a row of bricks between the border and the lawn, but for a really attractive finish, it’s best to get help from an expert.

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Batello Garden Design

2. Lay bricks higher than the surface. You also could position the bricks above the ground. This mini wall adds interest to the space and allows plants to attractively tumble over it.

This idea works well to separate a flower bed from a patio, but bear in mind that you’ll need to get out the shears or string trimmer to keep lawn edges tidy.

Aralia: Innovation in Landscape Design

3. Lay bricks on an angle. For a cottage-style yard, consider saw-toothed brick edging.

The zigzag look is created by laying bricks along a trench at an angle. Use a string line to make sure the points are at the same level and pack each brick tightly with soil.

If you’d like your saw-toothed edge to be more secure, consider using cement to form a base.

1 to One Garden Design

4. Try a rope look-alike. Classic Victorian rope-top edging is a good choice if you’re looking for something that’s in keeping with a traditional house.

You can buy these clay designs in either straight or curved styles. Many come with a mowing strip, or a lip that protrudes out to the lawn. The strip sits flush with the ground to make it easier to mow up to the edge.

The Garden Builders

5. Use railroad ties horizontally. Railroad ties have been popular for building steps and raised beds for a while, but you also can use them around the perimeter of your yard to create an edge for your borders. Here, two straight runs sit opposite each other, with smaller, more interesting beds at the end.

Home improvement stores stock railroad ties. Whether you go for new or reclaimed ties, make sure you buy untreated ones since the chemicals can damage your plants.

Green Tree Garden Design Ltd

6. Use railroad ties vertically. For something more sculptural, try a creative edging idea like this. Oak railroad ties inserted upright into the ground form a jagged line separating the flower bed from the lawn.

Harrod Horticultural

7. Keep it sleek with steel. If you’re looking for an unobtrusive edge, a steel design like this is ideal. Lengths of steel can be inserted into the ground to form a thin but durable division between the borders and the adjacent lawn or path.

There are different types available with various installations, but many have sharp pegs along the bottom edge to go into the ground easily. It’s also possible to manipulate the steel around a curved border.

Milosz Kijowski

8. Tie in to the backdrop. In a contemporary outdoor space like this, a cohesive look works well. One way to achieve this is to paint your border edging the same color as other structures in the yard.

Construct an edge from wood, stone or concrete and use exterior paint to tie it in with the rest of the space. This white edging combines with the bright white walls to create a striking frame for the plants.

Melissa Morton Garden Design

9. Build a rock wall. Looking for something rustic and traditional? Try a dry-stacked stone wall, which provides a rugged, natural edge to a flower bed. These stones look informal and slightly haphazard, but in fact they’re carefully arranged to ensure that they stay in place.

There’s a technique to creating a wall like this since the stones need to be tightly packed. Once installed, the edging will give your yard loads of character.

Ideas for Building Borders Around Yard and Garden

by: Dale Cox

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There are lots of choices for making borders and edges around flower beds, gardens and other areas of your yard. Anything from rocks to logs will work. However, creating a tasteful, attractive border may take some searching and a bit of an investment.

Take a look at any home store website or flyer in the summertime and you will likely see a number of choices for garden borders. Landscape timbers are a ubiquitous option and can make a quick, easy border without a lot of expense.

Bricks

Contoured bricks are a popular and relatively inexpensive option at about $2 each. These bricks are usually a foot long and made with some type of arched design along the top and interlocking shapes on the ends to join them together. The effect is to create a seamless “wall” around a garden space. Unless your yard is perfectly flat, you will need to work the ground a bit where you want to set these bricks so they sit level with each other and don’t look disjointed or uneven when you’re done.

These brick borders have become almost a cliche with many yards in a neighborhood having the same design and none being very original or unique. One way to be a bit different with these borders and give them a more refined appearance as well is to lay the bricks on their sides with the arches pointing out and stacking them two or three high. Staggering the arches on each brick so they overlap the spaces between those below can make these look more like a solid brick wall too.

Rocks

Rocks are a natural border material that has been used by homeowners since anyone ever imagined putting decorative edging around their garden. Quartz rocks are a particularly good choice for this purpose with their bright colors and reflective surface. There are also lots of naturally flat rocks that are easy to stack into a wall. If you live in a rural area, there may be a few options for getting flat rocks and some very handsome quartz for free. Many farmers have to remove these rocks from their fields to allow for planting and they usually dump them all in one place near a road or other accessible location.

If free rocks aren’t an option, there are suppliers near most populated areas carrying many varieties of rocks just for those looking for this border material. While they aren’t usually very cheap, the choices of rock types, sizes, and shapes can make planning a border design easier than the random selection you’ll get from free sources.

Building a rock border wall can be a bit tricky, especially if you’re using irregular stone like quartz. The unpredictable shapes don’t usually fit together easily and the stability of the finished wall can be precarious if one or two rocks aren’t stable. This is less of a problem with flat rocks but if you need to improve stability, you can use mortar to hold everything together. Black landscape-grade spray foam also works well to build a more sturdy rock border and the dark color can be visually imperceptible between the rocks.

Flexible Forms

A newer option for borders and edging around the yard known as an eco-border is made using shredded rubber from recycled tires. These come in several colors and are made to be staked to the ground and joined together end-to-end with plastic dowels.

The design creates a seamless border that’s flexible and can be shaped into just about any contour needed to follow the edge of gardens or other spaces in the yard. These borders are great for ringing trees and similar small areas, as well as an entire garden space. The low profile design makes it possible to mow right up to the edge, eliminating the need to run a grass trimmer after lawn mowing.

Interlocking Stone

Interlocking stone and brick made for building retaining walls also make a great border for larger yards and areas with different elevations. You can stack these several layers high without the need for mortar to hold them together. A lip is formed on the back of each stone to catch the back of the stones below creating a receding profile with each layer. These stones are typically available in two sizes: 8 and 12 inches long by 3 and 4 inches high. Because of the size, interlocking stones like this are well suited for large spaces but may overwhelm a smaller garden.

Root Barriers

Sometimes you just need to contain aggressive plants like bamboo and ornamental grasses without concern for appearance. The roots from these and other such plants can spread alarmingly fast and far. This can create a problem if they cross your property line and spread to your neighbor’s yard or public land. Bamboo, in particular is extremely difficult to get rid of once it takes hold. This can be destructive to yards and gardens as well as infrastructure like plumbing and sewer drainage lines.

Polypropylene root barriers have proven very effective at containing bamboo and other such aggressive plants. This is a sheet of plastic typically 40mil or 60mil thick and 24 or 28 inches wide. Lengths from 10ft to 100ft are available. A trench must be dug around the plant area to bury the plastic to a depth that allows a few inches to remain above the ground after backfilling. This arrangement contains the roots and prevents the plants from jumping the barrier and escaping to the wider ground. The ends of the barrier must be overlapped by a few feet and securely sealed together to prevent roots finding their way between the seam. Sealing is done with a two-sided adhesive strip that must be installed properly so it sticks fast along the whole width of the polypropylene on both ends of the overlap as any gap will be exploited by the aggressive roots in short order.

Rock Garden Borders

Some areas of the yard can be quite inhospitable to growing things. Areas where there’s a lot of concrete or asphalt, and where the sun is relentless day in and day out can make growing anything nearly impossible. For areas like this, a rock garden contained with interlocking stones can add a bit of class to the area and create a maintenance free border at the same time. Adding some yard sculptures or potted plants to the mix can enhance the view even more.

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Garden Landscaping Ideas

In modern landscape design, there are many images and themes for creating gardens – a garden of scents or stones, a moon or water garden, etc. Each of the options has its own characteristics.

Moon garden

Moon garden is one of the most unusual ideas for decorating a themed garden. The main idea for the implementation of this concept is to create a composition of plants, the beauty of which can be enjoyed even at night.

Usually, flowers that bloom under the cover of night and plants with white and silvery hues that radiate a pleasant glow in the moonlight are usually chosen to create a moon garden. As if enchanted, this garden is ideal for night walks, romantic dates and heart-to-heart conversations, surrounded by heady scents of flowers.

Aroma Garden

Aroma Landscape Garden Aroma Garden is a fragrant corner that can be designed in a wide variety of ways. The main condition for creating a garden is the selection of fragrant flowers and their correct combination. Musk rose or honey barberry, fragrant lily or tender mint can be chosen as a base. Aromas can influence well-being and mood, so the choice of smell is strictly individual.

Water garden

Water in any form is the basis of water garden landscaping – a lake, pond, stream or small body of water, where birds, fish, turtles and other inhabitants of the underwater world live in peace and harmony. Stones, driftwood, floating plants complement the landscape design of such a site. The water garden is always dominated by a quiet, cozy and peaceful atmosphere.

Mediterranean garden

The Mediterranean-style landscape garden is a corner of paradise, reminiscent of the gentle Mediterranean coast. For the design of the Mediterranean garden, heat-loving authentic plants are usually used.