Edging and paths...

I'm curious to know what type of edging you use (i.e. how do you keep the grass and gardens separate) and do you have paths? If so what material do you use on them?

I have such a mismash of edges and I'm looking for something uniform. I've seriously considered hiring a landscape grew to come in and professionally cut an edge into all my flower beds. After that we could keep them up ourselves (meaning I could do it lol). As for paths, I'm just starting to work them into my gardens and as of right now, I have dirt lol. I was thinking that I wanted to get some gravel but am wondering now if I should do something else. I was figuring I would but landscape fabric down and then the gravel to keep it from just sinking in and vanishing into the dirt. Now though I'm thinking some free wood chips might be the best bet since I have so much in the way of paths in just one section!

Not exactly edging, but years ago I bought a bunch of old wooden piers from a guy out of the Valley Trader (may be called Penny Saver up your way) and used them to line a big bed and to line the path I made from the driveway to the back door.

They are bigger than railroad ties and aren't soaked in creosote. Were perfect for the path because that area was very narrow - only about a foot wide between the garage wall and a slope, and I had to build up that area with soil from other places in the yard to make the path wide enough.

I'd suggest not going with gravel. It gets kicked around and you just have to keep replacing it and the landscape fabric only lasts a couple of years and then the gravel starts sinking and the weeds go wild. And once the fabric starts going, it's impossible to get the gravel out of the way to replace it. If you can put down pavers or concrete squares they work better and make a much smoother path.

I put down landscape fabric and gravel around and next to the pavers in the path I wrote about above. Big mistake.

thanks for the tip! I'd need to hit the power ball in order to afford pavers in the path area I have, it's a large rambling path. my biggest problem is that it fills up with weeds and becomes a mud path when it rains. ahh the joys of gardening lol!

Mine was long too. What I did was use the large 16 inch concrete stones but spaced about 4-5 inches apart the first year. They're not that expensive, about $2 something or $3 each at Walmart. It took about 13-14 to do around 25 feet. I had to allow for a curve. A couple of years later, I bought a few more stones and redid the walkway so it was a solid line of stones with no spacing in between, more like a sidewalk.

Even if yours is 50 feet, you could get enough stones to do it for less than $90, allowing 15 per 25 feet, with the spacing. If you want to, you can set the stones at ground level so that you can have grass all around and just mow that area.

Given the time and energy I could show you walkways similar to what you describe that were lined with well used free railroad ties some fifty years ago in a Boy Scout Camp. We hauled in truckloads of free rough sawdust and made the trails some eight inches deep. Over the years the edging got changed to rock each one brought to duty by a scout troop as a service project while in camp. The sawdust remains free. That trail was a hundred yards long and has never been a problem under four to six inches of sawdust. The trail led to a campfire ring built and maintained the same way. I returned for my sixty year anniversary in that camp last summer. The trail and the ceremonial campfire ring remain today as lovely as they were when I was a kid. I knew within a few feet where our scout troop placed our four or five feet of the rock edging. Maintenance consists of simply adding some rough mill sawdust every couple of years.

This picture shows the area, the path comes in on the right and runs along the entire back of the garden and comes out on the far left. There is also a path in the middle to access those planting areas. This is just one that is actually ready for something to go down to walk on.

Pretty pic Doc,
We use carpet for pathways in our Veggie Garden. Ric pics up old carpets or scraps he see sitting out for trash. You could use those like landscape fabric and cover them with saw dust, straw or stone. I agree with Hart not to sure about something like pea gravel it would migrate, but the carpet lasts a very long time and if you edged it with something like the larger rocks in Doc pictures you might contain the gravel. You can start out with stepping stones and then fill in between them as you can.

You have a lovely start to your paths. Since you are in the woods, come fall, you will have lots of leaves in your paths. We have one area with gravel similar to what is in the foreground. When using the leaf blower, some of the gravel pieces blow away along with the leaves. For that reason, I have reconsidered using gravel for our paths.

We used stones spaced maybe 6-9 inches apart and moved moss to the path area. It is spreading and filling in. The rocks along the path in your picture make a very attractive edge.

ldy_
I'd love to have a woodland to work with like that ! How nice. In that setting, I'd stick with rough wood or natural stone edges. Another way I've seen, that would take time and a power saw, is setting sections of branches maybe 2-3 inch diameter, into the edge on end. You'da have a row of little round ends sticking up just a couple inches. That would take time but could make use of the size branches you might be finding or cutting yourself.
In the path I vote for ecnalgs plan-- flagstone or other flat natural stone, (not gravel size) and encouraging the moss around it. If you can find sawdust, I'd start with that. It sounds like it would pack down and be free of weed seed and maybe thats why it worked so well in the Scout camp.

What a pretty area! You definitely want something more natural looking than concrete there. Any local sawmill would be happy to give you as much sawdust as you want to haul off, I would imagine. Stay away from cabinet shops. Their sawdust would have chemicals, finishes mixed in that you don't want to sprinkle around in your woods or breath while you're handling it.

Do you have a national forest anywhere near you? You can get a permit to collect up to 4 tons of stones for about $20 a year. And you don't have to collect all 4 tons at once. LOL

At ours you have to tell them where you want to collect the stones and it can't be in a recreation area but you can select severel areas. I'm thinking more of stones to line the path like you've done in the photo above and not stepping stones, but you might be surprised what you find.

thanks everyone! the stones that I've used to edge the beds are what have been dug up when the ponds went in and when planting, turning new areas into planting areas or that just work their way to the surface. I thought that the small gravel would look nice because it would brighten the deep shade that is so prevalent in that area. I'm thinking now though that I will just contact some of the tree trimming services and see if they will donate some of their chippings to me for the paths.

I'm still curious to know, how others edge their beds to keep them separate from the grass? I have at least five other areas that are actually 'in' the grassy areas of the property that need to be separated.

Thanks again!

We have a mix of different edging, stone, RRties, brick, that black plastic edging with the rolled edge and a few that are just dug in. I like the ones that are ground level so you can mow right over them without going back with the weedeater.

Sigh, so many rocks here, none usable. We have a lot of limestone and they just fall apart out of the ground. We do get lots of nifty fossils, though.

I like old bricks laid at ground level, as a mowing edge. Also use some old pressure treated 2 by 4 laid that way. A cut edge is nice but my soil is sort of soft and I am sort of lazy and I don't think it would hold up too well. I have some native rock as an edge slightly elevated in a woody bed with a bit of bare dirt on the grass side. My native rock is bumpy and rough (ironstone) though some of it gets dark and smooth after being out of the ground for years (they call it fieldstone then) In summary- I do like an edge but so far will not spend money on it.

I had extra sand and gravel and used it in a short path, but am finding that I don't like the gravel, too bumpy for bare feet

If anyone finds a source for free course mill sawdust you better keep it to yourself. Course mill sawdust is now being blown into covered trailers and sold to the wood pellet and plywood markets. Farmers who used to use sawdust in the cattle stalls are now reverting to paper which will eventually go to the wood pellet market too. There is no longer a storage problem with course sawdust for the mills. It is now a profit item. I know mills that swap their sawdust for meat and dairy products on the farm. However do not give up looking. The very smallest mills do not make sawdust fast enough to be cost effective to the haulers going to the pellet and plywood markets.

Just about all my beds are edged with landscape timbers--as in the below picture.
Most of them are 3 high--the lowers one being almost buried so it will hold the above ones firm when they get nailed together with 6" spikes....Lots of work! They DO last for years, though....

Here's an example--the bed-by-the-shed.....

I do have a couple beds that I have edged with the black, plastic edging.....as they are round or irregular in shape.
The gap is because there is still one big root that hasn't rotted out yet....IF I find a suitable stone--I will set it on top of that gap.

The bed to the right is edged by those red, 2"x12" (14"??) paving stones standing on edge and buried about half way down. If I ever need to raise the edging--I just raise the pavers up and put some extra dirt inside the hole and re-position them... Beds DO seem to grow higher and higher--as we always add plants and amendments and so the bed grows....
The Hydrangea in this bed is my Endless Summer one--this year it actually came up blue--been fertilizing it a lot with acid type foods...

This is the East side of my house--and the round bed is where I used to have my River Birch, which died and was cut down 3 or 4 years ago. Now the stump is slowly rotting out--but meanwhile, with the help of some bricks, it is a great pedestal for one of my large planters....

Many of the original beds (of almost 40 years ago) are edged by massive, rotting-out RR ties. Many of them are almost hollow....."condos" for all kinds of bugs.
Like the far edges of my "YUK" bed and all the shrubbery beds in the front of the House.....

This corner, especially, is where I would like to replace these rotted out ties with some nice, big edging rocks.
Haven't really gone hunting for any---wouldn't know where to begin!

Doc, We used sawdust for bedding in our horse stalls. There is a sawmill just down the road from us and we could go do there for rough cut sawdust it was in an open pile so it wasn't always as dry as you would like. But with a little more travel and effort we could go get dry sawdust from seasoned wood at a custom cabinet shop. You just had to watch what kind of wood they were working with. I think it was walnut wood that we didn't want in the mix.

It's black walnut, Holly. You could kill some of your plants with sawdust from black walnuts. It can cause allergy problems too. But I wouldn't use cabinet shop sawdust anyway. For starters, it's going to be a lot finer than sawmill sawdust and would probably mat down something fierce. But mostly because it's going to have finishes, oils and other chemicals that won't do your plants, your horses or your groundwater any good.

I'd be leery of chips from some tree companies too. If you want to know why, send me a dmail. And chips from a tree service or even from your local landfill could contain ground up poison ivy so be sure to cover your hands and arms when handling it.

Ok this was early in the season but this bed has large landscape timbers around it. Actually they frame most of my driveway, breaking it from the yard on one side, this bed at the front porch and the yard on the other. I wouldn't hate them if they didn't heave up and end up at weird angles.

These funky interlocking stone things run from one of those huge landscape timbers all the way around to the end of this bed. They vanish in the summer months under hosta and these ferns. They also don't stay in place when I bump them with the mower lol..

Then there is this plastic edging stuff. Couldn't really sink it too deep into the ground back here as the maple tree that was there (see stump) left monster roots all around. So it isn't exactly pleasant to the eye and it shifts when the mower bumps it.

I have the same landscape timbers as Gita that are stacked two high around another bed. Dh cut them and drove spikes through them to hold them in place. I have another bed that has shale we brought back from NJ, some flagstone that was leftover from the first pond and nothing around it. That bed and one that is close by were supposed to be combined but I could never figure how to separate them from the grass without some sort of edge. I have a bed at the top of the yard with the black plastic stuff, it like Gita's has all but vanished from adding plants and amendments to the bed.

Finally I have the biggest challenge of all the bed in the middle of my driveway. It had landscape timbers cut at angles all the way around it. However.. the Fed Ex guy, the UPS guy and several visitors to my house managed to run over them breaking them into pieces. Now there is nothing there to separate the bed from the driveway and that drives me nuts because I don't want my flowers walking into the driveway which they are doing, but dh and I haven't agreed on any edging. The bed is pear shaped and it slopes down so just one flat thing won't work. Even when the timbers were there we actually need say three high at the bottom and one high at the top.

I am with you on the money issue, I don't like spending it on stuff like this when I could be buying more plants with it!

How about timbers with tire busting spikes sticking out of the top? LOL What is with the UPS and Fedex guys? I have to run out of the house every time one pulls up and yell at them for stomping up the (steep) hill next to the driveway and mashing my daylilies and lilies planted there. If they'd walk another 10 feet, they could go up the walkway next to the garage.

oh it kills me when they hop out of the truck INTO the flower bed can you not see that there are plants under those big boots of yours! It makes no sense either because my drive is a drive thru, so pull down in front of the house and drive around, duh!

Well your beds are beautiful, I think I would go with stacked stone in the driveway but that could run to $ and or labor. Also is plowing in the winter an issue for you?

Hey Angie! Finally catching up here and enjoy seeing your photos, especially the woodland area :) I have the same dilemma here, numerous paths which need stone or mulch and plenty of "edges" that need something to keep the grass out of the gardens! Like you, unless I hit the Power Ball I'm never going to be able to achieve the look I'm going for! LOL One thing I've used for our woodland path is pine needles, keeps it natural looking, packs down well although they can be little slippery when wet but they're free! We've recently switched the mulch we're using for the gardens, a product called Virginia Pine Bark & Pines from Norfleet in Fredericksburg, VA. I wish we could get it in bulk because it would work great for the paths. It's $3.50/bag at Southern States and it would cost a small fortune at that price to cover all the paths here :( One thing I have started doing to help keep the cost down whenever I do use it is lay newspapers before spreading it. I use a whole newspaper (thick!) and overlap them. I know they won't last forever but again, it's free and should help for at least a few years.

For edgers, I know you've got a lot of territory to cover but there are pavers at Lowes or Home Depot that aren't too expensive. Some can run you up to $5.00 each but if you study what's available there are cheaper alternatives, some as inexpensive as $1.50 each. I've starting using one that I think is $1.48? They're 2"x12" with a chiseled edge and pretty sturdy, although I'm not sure they'd survive UPS or Fed Ex driving over them! LOL If I could afford it, I'd buy the same thing we used at my daughter's last summer to edge her front path (photo). Since I can't afford it and I don't have an "edger", I've been resorting to the method I used to use for my gardens in Maine. I dig along the edges creating a v-shaped "wedge" and mulch the edge deep. The wedge allows me to use the weed whacker at an angle to keep the grass from growing into the beds. Of course, sometimes I get the angle wrong and there's some bare spots where the weed whacker cuts into the soil too deep but I'd rather be looking at a bare spot than watching grass creep into the beds! I'm just not a huge fan of landscape timbers or plastic roll edging plus I'm too darned cheap! LOL Now if I could just take the time to get a permit and collect from the Blue Ridge Parkway, I'd have rocks for the natural look I'd prefer over anything else :)

Hey Debbie! I asked dh last night to get me one of those half moon edging tools lol, I told him all these disconnected beds are driving me nuts! I know the look I'm going for too, I want the gardens to be part of the yard not separate from them. I feel like when an area gets sectioned off with the timbers it divides it from the rest of the yard. Does that make sense? I don't mind them at the areas next to the house, so at the front porch and next to the garage where they are actually raised beds. I also told him that I wanted to replace the brick things with timbers around that bed. My house is all log, so they sort of blend in there lol.

I'd love pine straw grew up with that in NC but since we don't have many pines it might look a little funny, plus it's hard to get! Rocks, oh I love rocks and I'd edge every single area in my gardens with rocks if I had enough. The ones in the woodland bed have come from ponds being put in and plants being planted. I wish I could find a source for them and I'd buy them by the truck load!!!

There are SO many changes I want to make, the paths and edges are just the beginning!!! Maybe we should do garden work tours, go to each others house for the day and do garden work to help out!!

Makes perfect sense to me :) Rick used to have landscape timbers all along the driveway and slowly over the years I've been removing them and replacing them with rocks! So, what does he do? Last summer when he was replanting the center island in the driveway, he puts pieces of 4x4's all along the edges! LOL I do understand his reasoning however because we have one friend who always has problems maneuvering our circular driveway! He also used some of the large rocks I brought back from Maine along the edge and she STILL drove over them :( You should be able to find someone to deliver you a truckload of stones. Might be outrageous but worth a try? Maybe when I retire we can plan some "garden work tours"! LOL

We can start the work tour at our house. Things are a bit overgrown here right now. LOL

You can get very creative with stone as an edging -- we wanted to introduce a pathway so we would not have to walk through mud especially on trash days - and then we got carried away -- but stone does keep the plants in place. Snug, :o)

Very nice walk.
We have a stone walk that runs from around the side of the house (parking/utility area) to the front. We expanded a small bed in front of the house to come out and filled in the area so the walk it's self could be considered and edging. LOL

Gorgeous paths.

Holly, I do like that egg. Looks like it will crack open and a baby gargoyle will pop out. LOL

Oh Holly I LOVE those paths and I'm with Hart that egg is awesome!

Thanks I am very fond of that egg. The Grans just love playing with it and one of our cats use to use it to get her morning drink. Here are a couple of links to old threads that follow the building of the walk and installation of the egg bubbler.
Walk http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/868140/
Egghttp://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/831255/

Snug- beautiful path!
LOL, would be cute to have a baby gargoyle statue near that egg

http://www.darkknightarmoury.com/p-5783-baby-lion-gargoyle-statue.aspx Here you go.

http://www.pyramidcollection.com/itemdy00.asp?T1=P22568 Or a baby dragon?

You guys are too funny. If it ever gets broken I'll know what to do with it. LOL

oh how about this one!
http://www.collectionsetc.com/Product/dragon-sculpture.aspx/_/Ntt-dragon