One of the most overlooked elements of garden design for the average DIY gardener is garden edging. It can be laborious to install, expensive, and lets face it…just plain boring. Landscape edging can create a solid hard-scaping base for your garden design to improve curb appeal, and add structure to your garden and yard during the winter months. Here are 5 great ways to make your garden edging more exciting, unique, creative and low budget. (Photo source above: unknown. If anyone knows, please let us know)

Stone

Yes, we have all seen stone and rock as a casual garden or landscape edging. And it works, but it can look old fashioned. Instead of just lining up country stones, update the look by digging a trench edging your garden or lawn, then fill the trench with smaller rocks and stones. It gives you a good mowing strip, a barrier for weeds and grass, and it looks more modern. You can either purchase decorative rock, or if your budget is tight, collect smaller rocks from your own yard and re-use as edging.

Recycled Dishes and Pots

Here is a great way to recycle broken or old dishes, saucers, or even old ceramic pots and planters. You can grow quite a collection from yard sales, thrift stores, or by posting a want ad on Freecycle or a community bulletin board. Use the dishes whole, and dig into the ground as a border. Or break the dishes and use in a trench much the same as you would small decorative stone. Place a few dishes at a time into an old pillowcase to protect you from flying glass, wear safety glasses, and take your hammer to it! How small of pieces you want is totally up to you. Keep the size in scale with the size of the trench and garden area. Also remember, larger pieces will give you more texture and color. Photo source: Reclamation Administration

 

Industrial Materials

One of TGG’s fav recyclables is industrial materials. They blend well into the natural state of the garden, and have a more modern look. Check out your local Habitat for Humanity Re-Store, or yard sales and salvage stores for great ideas. Remember, you can use things that can be partially buried in the ground, like steel pipe sections, or perhaps steel utility boxes or slices of PVC pipe that can be laid into trenches, then back filled with gravel. Photo source: Floradora Gardens

 

Bottles

If you haven’t already seen the recycled bottle garden edging, time to take a look. This idea is best in areas where there is little traffic from machinery such as mowers. You can bury the bottles neck down so that the bottoms of the bottles provide the edging. You can vary the heights of each bottle, or keep it all uniform. Choose to use bottles of all one color, or mix it up. Photo source: Oregon Live

 

Pallets

Pallets are the new DIY building material, and with good reason. It’s a renewable resource, that is usually free! Check Craigslist or ask local businesses for their leftover wood pallets. Use the lumber to cut sections of wood, paint some of them randomly and sloppily with leftover house paint and leave some unfinished, then dig into a trench along your garden edge. Any other scrap wood can be used as well. Check out ‘Farmhouse 38’ and their great scrap wood edging project!

Five great ways to have creative DIY garden edging for your landscaping, while recycling and saving cash!