My 'lawn' is mostly mowed weeds with a bit of bermuda here or there and I gave up using anything as a border. Instead I plant hostas or Stella D'Oro daylilies or anything similar around the edges. In front of them I dig a trench one shovel blade wide and one shovel blade deep. I fill this trench with wood chips and I cover the soil in the flowerbed with the same chips. The bermuda or any of the other creeping weeds are very easy to pull out of the fluffy soil/composting chips. I can also run my mower right up under the spreading hosta or day lily leaves. After mowing and maybe 15 minutes weeding my beds, borders, and lawn all loook neat and tidy.

That is a very interesting approach Trianglejohn!! I planted Bermuda, but have a good mix of natural grass and weeds as well. The one battle I have is I can't use hosta, I've got full sun to very little shade most everywhere. My big thing was something to hold the sand down when we first built the house LOL. The first spring we were here it was a sandstorm out in the yard before I had anything to keep it down. Last year's April and May pics show a virtual volleyball pit for my yard. Currently my Rose bed and back beds are very easy to pull the random weeds and grass that creep in. I love the look of the lower spreading plants like hostas and the flexibility of shapes that a plant border would give me. Is there one that will take full sun? Pardon my ignorance, I've not done a lot of research on full sun, low growing plants I could use in this situation. I've gone with the assumption of a hard border (because of the grass), but would love to break away from that groomed subdivision approach.

The problem is that most turf grass creeps around and ends up in flower beds (where it goes wild!). No matter what sort of boundary you put in you will be pulling weeds and bermuda out of it. Big, heavy, blocky boundaries won't stop bermuda and they are a pain to weed in and around. Hand pulling is the easiest way to control bermuda and weeds, and the way to make hand weeding easier is to keep the boundary soil nice and fluffy. By filling the trench with bark chips or wood chips you make it very easy to pull out the weeds, and by using the same chips as a mulch in the beds you make the trench disappear. So it really is the simplest thing to do.

Though there are hostas that will take more sun, they always look stressed to me when grown there. I would stick with any of the mini-daylilies. The reason I use Stella D'Oro is because they are cheap (often free - plenty of people have them and will gladly give them away since they spread so quickly). What you want is some sort of tough stemmed clumping plant that spreads out vase-like so that your lawn mower rides up under the overhanging leaves.

My yard is not full sun so I don't grow a lot of the plants you would need. Maybe someone else will have suggestions.

I have FULL sun, but no bermuda.

I grow lavender, nepeta, gaillardia, salvia, buddleia, ornamental grasses, lambs ears, BES, agastache and such along my borders.

Here's what we did...dug a trench similar to what John says, but used the flexible edging that looks like particle board (can't remember the name) and then filled our trench with gravel on the side of the meadow grass. It mostly gets mulched over and filled with soil. We get the occasional wayward grass sprout and find crabgrass creeping across here and there.

Not a perfect edge, but our "yard" is a rural 2 acre meadow, not an in-town lawn.

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That is beautiful Cameron!!! I'm going to try this here with my beds!! I'm not looking for a perfect edge either, I'm rural as well on 15 acres and taking in land as I put in landscaping. The actual "lawn" area is small (I only had about 50 to 75 feet from the house cleared), I prefer plants and trees to grass to mow. Not to mention all the money I will save and can spend on plants by not buying a bunch of stone or brick to put in for borders!! :-) Hubby LOVES the idea of being able to run the mower right up to the edge of the bed for help with the maintenance. John, how well I know what a pain the weeding is around borders. On my last house (subdivision) I found some absolutely beautiful terra cotta border. I've never found it again, but my fescue crept right into the beds. And I made a beginners mistake of putting in Mint in my herb area. Controlling that was a constant battle!! Where I have the brick now is exactly where I wanted it. I didn't have any sidewalks put in either, I hate concrete poured sidewalks. So I'm putting in one very functional red brick sidewalk to the door we use the most. These beds with the brick border line that sidewalk and give the definition I need to the walk. I want to use stepping stones for the other walkways. Now, what kind of shorter plants would look good at the edge of the beds? That is and do well in full sun? LOL my last house had a lot of shade too, and I'm learning full sun plants now. I'm going to look into some of the mini lillies!

Short plants for full sun edging that deer and bunnies haven't eaten in my garden:

lambs ears (I like 'big ears' stachys the best)
coreopsis 'Moonbeam'
gaillardia (had a few nibbles last year, none this year)
thyme
oregano (ornamental or the culinary herb)
shorter salvias like 'Marcus'
delosperma cooperii (ice plant is easy to propagate by pinching and sticking the pieces in wet ground after a rain)
homestead verbena
creeping perennial heliotrope

Here is a link that might be useful: my blog

LOL, yes those deer and bunnies are a big concern here. I fenced in my veggie garden this year to keep the little rascals out!! At dusk, it's common for 3 or 4 bunnies to be playing on the lawn. I see fresh deer tracks on a daily basis and have seen them in the field at night walking the dogs. One night last fall, there was a beautiful buck, about a 10 pointer, just standing about 200 ft away watching us. I know they are here, I just don't see them much in the day. I'm going to do some research on what you recommended Cameron, I've been looking at Ice Plant, and Salvias are one of my favorites!! The hummies love them!! And I have a huge hummie population around here. I currently have 3 feeders out and am adding more to keep these little fellows going. I've had feeders drained in a single day. I'm having a lot of fun this year putting all this together!! :-) Plants that attract hummingbirds are a big plus for me!!

Don't be afraid to use plants like mint in your boundary zone between turf and flowers. It will fill in thick and you can simply mow it down as it creeps into the lawn. Besides nothing smells better than mint while mowing the lawn, well, maybe lemon verbena... and I have this golden oregano which has a great spicy scent....

Oh John, I will be using some mint. I LOVE mint and the wonderful smell of it!! But I want to use it in a more isolated area where it won't try to take over my other herbs. Last yard, I made the mistake of putting it in an area where I had some fairly close quarters and it tried to take over my Rosemary, oregano, basil and chive. I love herbs and actually clip, wash and dry to use in my cooking. Yes, my other passion, I love to cook and especially with flavor from my garden! Right now, all my herbs are in my "Pot Farm" on my piece of a deck in a plant stand. This will be one of my next beds, a nice herb garden where the bunnies won't munch too much! LOL Guess I better get some more fencing before I put this one in. :-) I keep telling myself, one step at the time, one step at the time. I keep watching the directions of the sun, and the wind, to find the right spot for a nice herb garden. This is fantastic, one of the reasons I moved out to the sticks! I wanted to create my own little paradise in my gardens and have this wonderful fresh option on herbs and veggies.

I use a lot of nepeta (Walkers Low and Six Hills Giant), but some can get pretty big. It's another one that's so easy to divide and create more! The color works with everything, too.

You could try Nepeta Felix from seed for your border edging. It germinates really well and covers a lot of ground, blooming the first year with continuous slight blooms instead of big flushes like Walker's Low and Dropmore. It goes well with Salvia Purple Volcano's purple basal leaves. I planted a few Dianthus Tuxedo in places down the row of nepeta, but it did not bloom this year so don't know for sure how it will look.