Hi there!

I like good edging so, so, so much. Edging is THE BEST. Otherwise you just fight to keep weeds and grass out of your beds, instead of doing fun gardening like you really want to.

My variety of edging is:

1. Bricks laid flat and recessed to ground level around my lawn circle. You can mow over them, weed-whack a neat line, and hand-pull whatever escapes out of the cracks. Labor intensive to manage but looks great.

2. That black plastic edging you buy in a roll. I have that buried halfway along on edge of my property where there's a privacy fence to keep my neighbor's grass from creeping into my bed. It doesn't show so it's a good, cheap solution.

3. That really nice metal edging that bends a little but not too much. I use this as the border for my brick patio. If I had more money I would line every bed with it! It's pretty but pricey.

4. Metal roof flashing! I was going crazy keeping the other neighbor's creeping crabgrass out. I literally took 16" flashing and buried it halfway along the other property line. It's very flashy in the sun and probably looks kooky but I DON'T CARE. It works so so well. Sometimes you just need to go further above and below the soil line to get effective separation.

5. There's this way of laying two lines of bricks down, one on its side and one flat, to create a pretty edging that you can also mow along. I moved on but it might be right for you.

That's a long post with a lot of edging types! If you made it all the way through, great job!

Good luck with your garden edging!

I have what is called sawtooth edging lined with plastic edging on the inner section deep to keep grass from growing underneath. I believe this is what is referenced in number 5. I can post pics if you like. This was original to my house a hundred years ago and I reinstalled it already went last year after I had to do landscaping. More complicated to explain than actually do.

I would like to see photos. My edging is not deep enough to stop grass intrusion.

I am not familiar with sawtooth edging.

Flashing? I could always put decorative brick over top of it. Does it come only in 16" width? Seems a bit wide.

Looked up sawtooth edging on the internet. Actually that's what I am doing with patio brick but no plastic edging to prevent grass intrusion. Interesting.

Mine also has the mow strip.

I see that metal roof flashing at Lowe's comes in 6", 10", 14", and 20" widths. Mine might have actually been 14". I used it because it was what I had on hand and I needed more depth than standard edging to stop those horrible weeds. Flashing is sort of the...nuclear option... if such a thing exists in the world of edgings!

I'm intrigued by putting a plastic liner on brick edging. Hmmmm... Thanks, Vaporvac!

Yardvaark- I'm so glad I'm not the only one who used flashing! Your edging looks so amazing, great work!

I installed the 10 inch wide metal flashing around a flower bed then added bricks. Since we have sandy soil I just sat the bricks on top of the grass. The flashing stuck up about 1/2 inch above the bricks. Over the years the bricks have sunk down into the soil leaving about 1 1/2 inches of flashing above. Of course it now looks like it’s been through a war but it still keep the Bermuda grass out. The Bermuda grass did grow between the bricks so the flashing stopped it.

I’m wondering if one were to bend the edge of the flashing at a 90 degree angle before placing it into the trench, making sure the edge pointed away from the flower bed, that when the weeds/grass grew down to that bend it would be directed back the way it came from. A 1/2 inch wide bend should work as all you would want is to redirect the grass. May be a tad hard going around a curved bed but a few snips here and there should work…..

@Yardvaark what kind of flower is that first one in your picture? the pretty pink one, love this border!

My favourite edging is a simple, classic, slit trench cut with a half moon edger and cut regularly with edging shears. Grass won't cross it if it's maintained properly. Well installed stone or brick edging like Yardvaark's example is lovely but diy installations are often wonky and it's easy to end up with a mess into which the grass will grow anyway.

The pale pink flowered plant is Begonia semperflorens.

@summercloud and CeresMer ... This picture is the first one I grabbed off of Google Images that decently illustrates a MOWING STRIP. The pink flowers are wax begonias though. And I see that Floral has already confirmed it. I agree with her that many homeowner hardscape edgings are horribly installed, often destroying the look of everything else. You can't have a nice looking garden when hideous scars run through it.

To make clear, I never recommended roof flashing where it, or any part of it, could be seen. As I described earlier, it is recessed relative to the brick and is on the inside of the bed, like this ...

Another way I've used flashing is directly under the brick, where the brick would be set in a bed or more. I like this because it can be hard to get the flashing to cooperate perfectly when going around curves or if there are any pitching of grade. The mortar setting bed can take up the slack of any differences between flashing and brick, thus ...

Yardvaark: I love the photo and the diagrams. The brick edging looks elegant. Wouldn't the bricks subside over time? I have used sand under patio brick before and I get grasses and weeds intruding between bricks, and subsidence. I have thought about going to decorative blocks used in small retaining walls. They look good, but are very expensive.

The main thing is 2 put rocks to hold things straight and use a mallet to get them tight together next to one another. It really goes rather fast once you start. They look the same after quite a bit of wear. The plastic edging is behind the Sawtooth bricks deep at the same level as the most strip if not deeper. You could use a wide metal strip as suggested above which would be even better. I just happen to have tons of this plastic edging so I thought I'd use it. So far so good. Click to see the images more clearly.

You have to set the bricks a little higher than the true grade because the grass has height and if the bricks too low, the grass will cover. It depends on the kind of grass as to how high exactly. It's a bit of art to figuring it out.

The bricks won't sink if you put them on a base of sand and tamp them down hard with a steel tamper, in essence, pre-sinking them to the maximum on their day of creation. Roots can grow under bricks, thus the flashing. But if one uses glyphosate to spray weeds that can take care of much that infiltrates the joints. Weeds are generally a problem if one allow them to begin with. If one is dedicated to their riddance, it becomes quite easy to maintain that status.

I want to agree that it is important to put those mow strip bricks as suggested above. If they sink below you can still use them as a mow strip but the problem is debris collects there and composts down and then suddenly you don't really have an edge anymore because plants start growing in it. Ask me how I know! This wasn't because they were not set correctly but when I had to redo this upper-level and put sod it made it higher than the bricks. So the bricks that were not removed are now lower. I will be working on those this year the pictures shown are bricks that were all removed.