Clean Edging
Make sure your garden has a clean, orderly edge. This doesn’t necessarily mean installing plastic or metal edging or putting down patio bricks or blocks.
A simple edge can be made with a flat bladed shovel. Dig a small trench about 3-4 inches deep and and inch or two across. Then bring in your mulch and let it fill in on the garden side.
See photo credits below
A curving edge is often more pleasing to the eye. I like to lay a hose down to help me visualize the line and then use spray paint to mark it in before I start digging.
If you’re going to install plastic or metal edging the steps are pretty much the same. Just add the additional steps of getting the edging into the trench, fitting the pieces together, cutting the extra edging off at the end, staking it all down, and filling the trench back in. So it’s a bit more work.
With edging you also need to make sure your trench is very vertical. If your edging isn’t put in straight or staked down properly it will rise out of the ground in a few years. The ground expands and contracts with every freeze and thaw so any physical barrier in the ground will come up eventually. Then it will likely be damaged by a lawn mower or trip you as you’re gardening.
This is why I prefer a simple trench edge – it may need the occasional touch up here or there but that is far less work than re-digging a trench, putting down a whole new section of edging, and trying to make it fit with the other pieces you didn’t replace. And a more natural edge is more pleasing to the eye, in my opinion.
Looking for more tips on keeping a tidy garden? You may also be interested in these posts:
Photo Credits:
Shovels: “Shovels” by arz – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons -http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shovels.svg#mediaviewer/File:Shovels.svg