Creating clean, defined borders in the garden has transformed both the look and maintenance of our outdoor space. While I’ve always appreciated the semi-formal aesthetic that crisp edging brings to garden beds, the decision to edge all our borders was equally driven by practicality. Our robotic lawn mower has become a much more efficient gardening assistant now that it can navigate smoothly along the borders without getting caught up in rough edges. The clean lines not only eliminate the tedious task of weed whacking but also give our garden that polished, intentional look I’ve always admired.
The edges needed to be at least 15 inches deep and flat to allow the Husqvarna lawnmower to turn around. I also wanted something that kept the dirt and mulch inside the beds. After months of scouring the internet I finally came up with an approach to use a combination of pavers for the flat portion of the border and natural stone for the raised edge. Here’s what our new edging looks like about a month after installation:

This is about one month after installation. All my beds were lined like this with openings for walkways, some wide enough to fit the tractor.
This was a monumental project. We have over a kilometer of garden beds that needed to be edged. Amazingly the project only took about 6 weeks from start to finish.
It did take a lot of stone. This was the first delivery. Because the natural stone is sold by weight, we underestimated how much it would take to finish all the borders so we did have to order 2 more pallets of the natural stone.

This was the paver delivery only!

We were able to store all the pavers and stones just off our driveway. This really limited the amount of repair work that needed to be done to the lawn areas after completion. Our landscapers also use thick rubber mats to drive on, which also reduce lawn damage.
To do the install, the landscape team dug a trench all the way around each bed. We laid this out with flexible edging a few hundred feet at a time so I could adjust the bed layout as we went along. These trenches were filled with HPB (crushed gravel) which was then tamped down. The pavers were laid along the top and the flexible edging removed (more on that in a bit). Once the pavers were in place, they went back to the start to place the natural stone border, cutting each piece as necessary to keep everything in line.

Steps 1 & 2 – trenches lined with packed down HPB gravel

Step 3 laying the pavers in a consistent pattern

Step 4: the natural stone risers were installed
Next, the installers lined the front edge with a special cement that contained fibers that strengthen the concrete. The concrete edging holds the pavers in place and stops grass from growing up the edge. Although this was more costly that steel or plastic edging it will last much longer. Finally, they added polymeric sand between the pavers.
We are having a bit of an issue with the polymeric softening. I think that’s because this it’s a relatively narrow installment and water flows under the pavers from the garden beds. Having said that nothing is moving and if I have to walk the edging 3-4 times a year with a weed torch it’s no big deal compared to the days I used to spend edging all these beds by hand.
Here is what everything looked like just after completion:
While we did this mainly for maintenance reasons, here are some more images to show you the dramatic difference this makes in the look of our garden.
The ‘Heart’ garden before and after:

The heart garden before edging.

Even though this bed is lined with lavender the hardscape edging, and lighting we added at the same time, really transforms the space.

This is the woodland garden in fall.

We had these strawberry beds built when we did the greenhouse patios. Adding the paver edging around the outside really completes the look. And again, the robot lawn mower simply drives right over these pavers cutting the grass right up to the beds.

The landscape team did an amazing job edging the circle garden!
And if you are curious, this is what it looks like from overhead.

Front drone shot

Overhead drone shot