I've liked using a lawn edger or installed powder coated steel edging. Depends on what aethetic I'm going for. Both have worked great for my beds. For ease, which ever type you use, do so after a rain storm when the ground is easy to manipulate.

What type of grass do you have? (My neighbor's zoysia defies edging.)

I don't bother using any edging - just keep a nice clean definition with a sharp half-moon cutting blade. Easy to expand by chopping a few more inches of turf out of the bed. A very traditional English method which also has the added advantage of forming a little trench to stop grass/turf rhizomes penetrating the adjacent beds.

I use campanula's method. This website has a nice diagram to explain it: https://homesteadgardens.com/blog/how-to-create-natural-edging/

Now I know what I did wrong when I edged last summer

http://www.funkyjunkinteriors.net/2012/07/how-to-edge-flower-beds-like-pro.html

i never liked the half moon .. i used a straight shovel ... but this is where i learned.. the number one tool is a file.. to shapren whatever digging tool you use ... like this one

https://www.amazon.com/Bond-LH029-Ergonomic-Spade-Shovel/dp/B000I1O3NG/ref=sr_1_3/145-1434473-6759239?ie=UTF8&qid=1492023960&sr=8-3&keywords=flat+edge+shovel

a sharp tool makes it sooooooo much easier ...

also.. this shovel is good to use in a wheelbarrow ... and also for ice chipping ... etc .. that was one other thing about the halfmoon.. no other use .. lol ...

and do you know why the edging works.. the 3 inches.. basically get below the lawn root line ... so the grass takes a long time to grow down further and buck up into the bed ...

the first time thru its a PIA job .... but afterwards you do it only once or twice a year.. to keep it sharp and clean ...

btw.. if you add an inch or two of mulch.. then you might want to go 4 to 5 inches deep on the straight edge ....

ken

Thanks. I may not have explained myself well enough. Due to rain run off, ground covers & perennial spread, my beds keep growing in size. I use both a half moon cutter and every third year or so we rent a power edger. The problem is the beds keep getting bigger. Nice in many ways, but I need to stop the progression. There is only so much space or I'll end up with a stone walkway and no grass. I don't really like medal or plastic edging, but I have to stop the progression. If I use stone or brick, I fear it will be too much, visually. I thought about cutting an edge back into the bed to reduce the size and then planting grass see on the other side. Either way, I need to figure out a way to put a limit on the grow of the perennials. Does that make sense / paint a picture of my problem?

That's an interesting problem. If you have that much growth, will your plants respect a strip of plastic or metal or just climb over it? I'm thinking at some point you might need to either relocate plants back from the edge or rip out creeping plants from encroaching on your lawn.

There are plant swaps happening all over including one for mid-Atlantic in May (See mid-Atlantic exchange) where gardeners with exactly the same problem thin out or divide their overly enthusiastic plants and share with those just starting out.

Thanks for all you comments and suggestions!

It sounds like what you need is a yardstick. Before I snagged a pile of used brick from the neighbors for edging, I'd measure out the beds every spring. It is a pain, so the brick was much appreciated, but necessary. Laid on its side, it isn't very noticable.

My problem with metal edging is that it does not stay put, but heaves. Pieces of metal sticking out of the ground and lawnmowers are not a good combination. So any time somebody brings it up, I cringe.

If the edges are straight, 4in x 1in timber, fixed in with timber stakes, fitted flush to the lawn, would be another useful option. I am wondering why your beds get larger. When this happens at the allotment, it is always because the plants at the front of the bed have flopped over, causing the turf to die back. My eldest - conveniently a welder/metal-worker - has made me rebar supports to lift the foliage and prevent it from collapsing forwards onto the grass paths. In truth, I usually have to over-sow after a winter of trudging to and fro on the too narrow paths and mashing it into mud...but that's another tale.

After taking a much closer look and making a more informed evaluation of the bed growth situation, I think my problem has more to do with the people who mow my lawn. They are weed whacking around the bed edges so close to the ground that they are killing the grass. After several times of whacking the grass around the beds, the grass is gone and either weeds or perennials/ground covers fill the void. Either way the beds continue to expand.

I like steel roll-top edging for a clean edge. I install it so that 1/4" of edging sticks above the ground. Grass covers it up.

Thanks for you comment. Now that I understand the situation and my husband and I have had a little talk, we need to do something, be it change lawn services or put in permanent edging.

I use buried black plastic edging (the only kind I have seen in my area) with a single line of bricks along the inner edge. DH does the mowing and so gets a veto as to the type of edging, and he hates a cut edging since the mower is difficult to handle by it; the wheels fall in. With the ground level edging (which in our soils doesn't move with frost; it has projections to help stabilize) he can run the mower wheels on the brick and the beds need no weed whacking. Size the brick or patio block to fit the mower wheels. I find that the grass grows tall enough to hide the edging and brick unless one is within a couple of feet of the garden.

Originally I used the trench-edging method. But that needed refreshing three times a year (spring, mid-summer, and fall) so it became a big chore as the garden got bigger. Plus, since I use a walker for mobility, I had much the same problem as NHBab's husband with the mower :-) It was annoying - and hazardous- to have a wheel drop into the trench! So I moved to the metal edge + brick option. That worked quite well. But the winter of 2015/2016 caused a lot of frost heave for the metal edge. Along the 'moat bed' where the metal was highly visible, we actually lifted the sod and added more soil to hide the metal edge! In other places, I have planted things to drape over the edge - but when the plants are dormant the metal is annoyingly visible! Along the garage bed where it is shady, I planted hostas as an edging and removed the metal and bricks last week. I wish there were big leafed plants like hostas that would work well in full sun!

In the shady backyard there is only a bit of brick edging - without metal edging as there is no grass near the edging to invade it. So the edging is only an issue in the sunny front garden. I'm not happy with the look of some of it now but am also not prepared to do the work to do a major overhaul, so will be tinkering with plants to hide the most egregious problem areas :-) I don't think there is any perfect edging!

My husband is now investigating the costs associated with aluminum powder coated edging. We are supposedly if zone 6, but we are actually in a micro climate so we have to plant and plan as if we are in zone 5. Woodyoak, you said you had trouble with the edging heaving, how about you NHBabs? Is the lifting with frost worse in certain soils? NHBabs, how small are the bricks/stone you used that they are mostly invisible? I have a number of beds and I am worried about the look of having them each edged in stone/brick, but if you cannot see them until you are close, that might be a better option than metal heaving. Nothing is easy, but metal edging is expensive and we don't want to make the wrong decision.

What is your garden 'style' - i.e. the 'feel' you are aiming for? I like the look of the brick edging in the front garden - and around the beds close to the house in the back. Both those areas seem appropriate for the more structured feel of the brick edging to balance the rather exuberant look and feel of the plantings there. In the 'woodland' parts of the backyard I have used pine logs in several places as edging (which also makes a raised bed in places) which fits well with the wilder feel of the plantings there. The logs do break down in 7-8 years or so and need replacing but that is cheap and easy (can often get log sections from neighbourstaking down trees...). The other thing that works well for me in the backyard is to put mulch/sand combination paths between the beds and the grass so no edging is required at all. If I was going to do the front garden over again, I would arrange the beds and paths to eliminate the need for edging entirely I think.

I use a combo of the back plastic edging to keep out grass and which has almost little wings several inches down that prevent it lifting in my soil. Just along the inner edge of the plastic I run a line of standard sized brick, so 3" or 4" wide I think,bough in one garden that borders on rough field, I have patio block that is perhaps 6" wide. I am not home to check. My soil is a very fine sandy loam, so lighter than a clay soil. I don't know how it would do in a heavier soil like Woodyoak's more clay based soil, but in my garden I have never had to reset it, even though some have been there 15 years. I have had to reset the bricks sometimes because the voles tunnel under it and so the bricks sometimes drop down.

When I am home in a few days I'll try to remember to add a photo of how mine looks, both up close and from a distance.

Ironically, I was looking for this and never found it two?three? weeks ago. I'm done now! :/ What worked best for me was first cutting the line for the shape before any digging. Used a box cutter. It was fast work, surprisingly.