Install An Outdoor Edging

For any garden large enough, edgings will become necessary. They define pathways and highlight plants, ensuring a beautiful finish.
Curved or straight, hard or soft, here’s how to install your own outdoor edging.

Picking the right materials

Traditionally placed along walkways, lawns and smaller gardens, edgings are incredibly useful. They hold the soil well together, and prevent the grass from invading anything else. But their main advantage is mostly aesthetic, provided that the material fits perfectly into the background.
Choose something natural and durable. Stone, brick or wood are great examples. For a smaller cost, you can use reconstituted stone or stained concrete, which make for good imitation.
Finally, like the gardens of our grandparents, it is possible to use metal edgings via wrought iron or painted steel.

Hard edgings

For the strongest and hardest solutions, you may want the borders consisting of blocks of stone or concrete.
Here’s how to install them:

• Delimit with a stake and a chalk line the path of your edgings.
• Create a small trench, about 6 in. wide and 4 in. deep along the desired length. Use a spade and a shovel.
• Level the bottom of the trench with a bed of about an inch of concrete.
• Lay the edgings on the concrete with a mallet. Make sure to align everything properly.
• Check that everything is leveled properly and let dry for 48 hours.
• When everything is dry, add some soil and stones to flush the top of the curb. Tamp firmly.
• Grout the elements by surrounding them with some lean concrete.

To avoid damaging the stones, use a smooth trowel or a stencil to seal everything.

Wooden edgings

When it comes to logs or bamboo poles, you ca simply push them vertically into the ground, with two-thirds of the wood having to be underground. Backfill and firmly pack the soil along the new fence. You can use a sledgehammer to make the task easier.
Wooden beams should simply be laid flat, and anchored a few inches into the ground.

Soft edgings

Woven wicker branches can be mounted on poles or simply driven into the ground. You can pre-drill holes with a crowbar so that driving them down will be deeper and easier.
Edgings made of wrought iron or stainless steel are installed the same way.