A beautiful garden design requires a lot of care and creative ideas. Beds for flowers, herbs or vegetables ensure order in the garden and are a good change from the sometimes boring empty lawn. If you want to protect your beds from weeds and invasion of the lawn, then a bed edging made of stone, wood, plastic or even metal will come to your rescue. In the article you will find the advantages and disadvantages of the different materials and nice ideas for a tidy garden. Create a beautiful garden design and clear boundaries between individual elements and areas to create more structure and order.
If you attach great importance to the look of the garden, then a stone bed is an appropriate decision. Stones give the garden a special character and create a pleasant atmosphere. They ensure an elegant garden design and you can choose from a wide variety of materials that differ in shape and color to suit your needs and wishes. You can use them to create straight as well as curvy and curved stone surrounds.
To find the right type of stone, you can use stones that are already in the area as a guide. If the facade of the house, the garden path or the terrace is covered with stones, you can choose for theRaised beds same type of stoneor use a similar looking material. This gives your garden a complete thematic look in which the colors used create a beautiful interplay.
Natural stones have a natural effect that is perfect for outdoor areas such as gardens. In addition, a massive stone bed border is built using a concrete foundation to protect the plants from weeds and pests. Natural stones should be laid flush in the ground to create a solid edge. A great feature of this type of stone is its weather resistance, which makes it usable for borders anywhere in the garden.
Bricks and clinker stones make a special impression in the garden. They can be used for decorations and garden paths as well as for flower bed borders. Regardless of whether it is used upright or horizontally – the brick edging always looks beautiful. You can also get such stones cheaply from a construction site or simply use the leftover bricks from the last wall construction.
This edging is also practical if you want to create slightly higher beds. You can build them as high as you want and create beds like the one in the picture above. Oh, here you can play with your situation again. Not all bricks have to be laid in the same direction.
High-lying beds in the garden can be beautifully and safely bordered with palisades. You can find concrete palisades with sizes up to 120 centimeters in most hardware stores. Since they are installed deep into the earth, you should note that about a third of them will disappear into the ground. If you have decided on a palisaded enclosure, also think about installing barrier strips to prevent the earth from washing out through the palisade joints.
A popular material for is granite. It has a beautiful gray color that is easy to notice in the green garden. This stone is a beautiful design idea for edging flower beds. In addition, it is a very robust type of stone that can withstand all weather conditions and will decorate your garden berries for a long time.
If the foundation is firmly laid in the ground, there is no risk of destroying the structure. This also makes mowing the lawn around the bed and at the edge of the lawn easier. The grass no longer grows directly into the bed and you no longer have to cut it by hand. It creates a neat border that makes your outdoor space look neater.
Small beds look beautiful with a border of gravel. If, on the other hand, you are looking for a visually elegant choice for solid edging of a raised bed, then we recommend gabions. They provide security for the plants and have a great look. They guarantee that even in the heaviest rain there will be no landslides and your structure will stay where it is. Gabions also look very modern and can be filled with different materials.
Wooden bed borders have a beautiful look and fulfill a more design function. They are reminiscent of nature and are suitable for gardens in a natural style. Wooden borders are quick and easy to make yourself, but never offer a perfectly rounded shape for the edge of the bed, but always have a certain angular look, but that doesn't mean they are any less attractive. Nevertheless, they have a certain charm that is appreciated by many gardeners.
In contrast to the versions made of stone, these do not last long and must be regularly maintained with new paint and replaced after a certain period of time. However, if you want to get a weathered look, you will still like the wood even after several years. This look is particularly suitable for rustic and shabby chic gardens.
Different types of wood have different properties and lifespans. For garden owners looking for a durable material for bed edging, long-lasting woods such as oak, larch or Douglas fir are best. Although they are typically more expensive than the other types of wood, they ultimately cost you less because you don't have to replace them as often. However, it should be noted that all wood should be pretreated before it is used in moist soil.
You can use bamboo to decorate round or square beds. For design flexibility, bamboo garden bed edging is often offered in a rolled form that is intended for easy use. This means that several bamboo sticks are already connected to each other, so you don't have to stick them all into the ground individually.
Bordering beds with wicker fences or willow branches is a more decorative option. Such borders are suitable for beds with plants that do not require special care. The appearance of the wattle fence changes over time - some branches may spread outside the fence due to wind or other weather conditions. If you want a perfectly shaped bed border, you should choose a different material.
Wooden bed borders are usually not weatherproof and can be destroyed by heavy rain or storms. In addition, the wooden stakes and roll boards do not offer complete protection against pests. Before making your choice, it's best to consider all the advantages and disadvantages and get information about all the material options from a hardware store or garden center. There you not only get an informative overview, but you can also inquire about the prices.
A border with wooden palisades is always popular because it looks beautiful and can be visually adapted to existing garden furniture. Such variants made of halved stakes are slightly higher than the classic bed borders and are therefore used to frame raised beds or simply to create a higher border. The latter is only an advantage if there are no particularly low plants in the bed. These are then no longer clearly visible.
Edging made of rubber bands, recycled materials or plastic profiles are inexpensive and easy to use because they do not require digging up the ground to install them. Rubber band and other plastic bed edging materials can be easily cut with scissors to give you the desired shape and then inserted into the soil between the bed and the lawn, which is very easy due to their very thin shape. You can also use a rubber mallet.
The plastic border has little stability. It is not at all as durable as a bed border made of stone or metal. Under certain circumstances, the plastic of garden tools can be damaged and the frost can make the material brittle. Whether it is worth investing in this type of edging for garden beds should be carefully considered. At least they are suitable as a temporary solution because they are very cheap to purchase.
If you don't necessarily want to use natural materials for the bed edging, but still prefer a wood look, then you can choose plastic variants that display a wood pattern. The models are very attractive and adapt to the natural environment despite the artificial material. They are a good alternative to stone bed edging and are also worth considering.
The edging with a rubber ring is suitable for beds with mulching, as the ring separates it perfectly from the lawn. This creates a visible boundary that gives a clear indication of which area you should not enter. At the same time, this border can only be seen subtly and is therefore not so intrusive. So if you don't necessarily want an eye-catching border or want to give the impression that mulch is merging directly into lawn, you can use a rubber ring.
A nice design idea for the border of the bed would be to design it like a fence. However, you don't want it to be too high so that you have easy access. You can use different materials for this. You have already seen the variant with wood made from halved wooden pegs. There are also beautiful models made of clay or you can use ordinary roof tiles. You may even have some lying around after renovating an old roof that you could use. Otherwise, suitable models can also be found made of plastic, so you don't have to search long to find something suitable.
