"Shiva" wrote:
I have a large rose bed on one side of the house that had
tall plants (hts and Austins) in the middle, medium-tall
around them, shorter around them, and so on.

I like to keep this bed well mulched--in fact, mulch is mounded high.

Is there a fairly tall edging that is not ugly but will keep the mulch in?
It needs to be 12 to 18 inches tall. I am using the black rubber
interlocking stuff you pound in with a mallet and it is really ugly.

I don't suppose you could use the "Zen edging" I'm using for my roses:
none. I take it that your mulch will not just taper off over a foot or two
of space around the edges, and remain more or less in place. Again, I
have space to burn, and you probably haven't.

If you live somewhere where a rot-resisting wood is available at
reasonable prices (whether it be new-growth redwood, Western
red-cedar, or new-growth baldcypress [as it is here in north Florida]),
you could buy that. Pound heavy stakes into the ground and then nail
a couple of 1 by 8s, one atop the other, into them. Not that cheap,
but e.g. baldcypress weathers to a lovely gray. New-growth woods
are not completely rotproof, but they can take some years of ground
contact without apparent damage. (Interesting note: the mega-stores
like Lowe's and Home Depot stock pricey (here) Western redcedar
from British Columbia or wherever, but not second-growth cypress
cut 20 miles away from town: go figure. One has to go to local mills.)

Or you could use treated wood. Yeah, it's a ugly greenish color, and
although the pressure-treaters swear up and down that it doesn't leach
an appreciable amount of arsenic into the soil, you might not trust them.
Douglasfir and such will have ugly little slots cut into the wood to
ensure that the preservative penetrates; southern pine will not, as it
is porous enough not to need them. Which wood you get depends on
where you live: here, of course, it's southern pine.

To reduce the ugliness, whitewash the treated wood. Yeah, real
whitewash: hydrated quicklime and water, as used by Tom Sawyer,
not the phony stuff sold to give a "whitewashed" look to furniture. I
wrote to one of the wood-preserving industry groups and asked, and
their resident expert said that whitewash will, if anything, SLOW any
leaching of preservatives from the wood, and not react with them.
Repeated coats may be necessary, though it's supposed to form a
layer of "rock" over time. It'll sweeten the soil a little, which may
or may not be a problem. Go to a good farm supply store and buy a
bag of what I think they'll call "hydrated lime," not the ground-up
limerock or dolomite sold for spreading on lawns.

I suppose you could use cinderblocks, but they're bloody heavy and
not that cheap, really. I don't find them ugly; you might. Just dry-stack
them two high.

Mark., just my 2 cents worth, and perhaps not worth that