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Janet · 24-05-2015, 11:40 AM posted to uk.rec.gardening

In article , lid
says...

On 23/05/15 23:45, Tom Raider wrote:
Can anyone advise me on lawn edgings? I want to have a neat edge to my lawn
and am thinking about using the corrugated or straight rolls of thin coloured
plastic. There are several makes. Is it as easy as digging a slit about 4
inches deep along the line of the edge and just inserting the required length
and then back-filling with soil? I expect the cheaper ones to fade after a
few years but I?m not overly bothered by that. I?ve seen the metal ones
but they are quite expensive, though may be more rigid and easier to bang in
with a mallet. One disadvantage I can see is that the lawn close to the
edging will have to be cut with shears, or carefully with a strimmer, so as
not to chew up the edging.

At one end of the plastic market Poundstretcher do £2 for 8 metres, and at
the other B&Q is doing £15 for 1.5 metres.

I was in the same position as you a couple of years ago. It seems the
choice is between cheap and temporary, or expensive and permanent. I
used the corrugated green plastic bought in an end-of-season B&Q sale.

It is easy to put in using a lawn edger or spade to cut a slit. The
mower will eventually cut bits of it. It is a bit more resistant to the
strimmer, but that will get it in the end, too. The other thing is that
the damn crows seem to enjoy trying to pull it up!

I think that using harder material is fine for the lawn, but might do
some damage to the mower blades. You might also find that you use a lot
more strimmer line than you did before, as when that hits the hard
edging it gives rather than the edging.

I got sick of trimming lawn edges; in our garden they took longer
than the mowing.

John laid a narrow concrete mowing strip round the edges of all our
lawns and beds. He used a spade/edger to cut a moat between the lawn and
bed, the lawn side formed one edge and he made the other with some long
flexible plastic strips; filled the moat with concrete, smoothed the
top, and when it had set removed the plastic strip to do the next
section. Curves easily accommodated. This was a copy of ssme thing a
friend had done. It was a lot of work but is the most labour saving
thing we've ever done in the garden. The mower wheel runs on the
concrete, the blade doesn't touch it and cuts the grass edge perfectly,
the grass never grows into the bed and there's no more tiresome edging
to trim. Saves hours of work.

https://flic.kr/p/swX4pR

Janet.