PROBLEM #1
Your garden has no edge
Crisp edges can elevate the garden bed from just-flower-filled to floriferous and refined. Plus, proper edging keeps weeds and lawn from sneaking into the bed and makes mowing the lawn easier. If your garden beds are high-maintenance or a little untidy, get edgy with any of these three simple edging ideas you can do yourself.
← TRENCHED EDGING Use a shovel or a half-moon edging tool to dig straight down 4 to 5 inches. Redistribute the soil toward the center of the bed, creating a slope. Add a couple inches of mulch to keep soil in place. You can easily expand or change the shape of your bed, but you’ll need to routinely recut the edge to keep it functioning.
← BRICK OR STONE EDGING Dig out a shallow trench that’s as wide as the brick or stone and 2 inches deeper. Fill the trench with 2 to 3 inches of sand, tamp it down, and place your bricks or stone on top so that they’re 1 inch above the soil line. Tap them in with a rubber mallet and backfill the cracks with sand to prevent weeds.
Purchase steel or aluminum sections of edging and flat stakes (aluminum won’t rust but might heave with frost and need to be pounded back in). Pound the edging into the ground with a rubber mallet and secure it with the stakes. How much metal edging is visible above ground is up to
