I found this forum while looking for information on edging for my gardens. I am wondering if anyone on this forum has any experience with the 5 1/2" wide matting made from recycled rubber. It is used to edge gardens and looks like cocoa matting. Supposedly it lasts for 10 years, is easy to install and works well for controlling weeds. I would love to hear about any experience other gardeners may have had with this product. I would also be interested in other suggestions for edging.
All of my gardens have lawns around them, or at least on two or three sides. Edging would make my life much easier, but I do not like the black plastic edging for several reasons. My husband bought handsome pavers for edging the dahlia garden, but the nearby lily garden is irregular in shape. The pavers would be a challenge. Our ground is somewhat uneven, too, with flower beds actually an inch or two below the grass level -- unconventional, I know. I think the rubber matting sounds like a good solution, but would be very pleased for advice.
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I have not seen that edging Nancy, but that is not a surprise! Now, having garden a bit lower than lawn?! We raise up as much as possible!! From same level to a bit higher.
Anyway, on the edging, this is what I am trying to do with my beds. They are rectangular for the most part. Started sort-of French colonial style, and morphed and whatever as gardens do.... Was real tired of grass and the bramble thing coming in. Have used the 4' green plastic edgers from The Box stores. I guess about 5-6" wide. Clean out the bed on the edge from grass and stuff. Push or pound that edger down to ground level, more-or -less. Then put a wood landscape timber over that. Make sense?!*! I have seen at the same Box Stores, flex edging for more curved and organic shaped beds. End result in mine is you do not see the plastic. And I want it as deep as possible. Stuff grows here.
Do let us know how the other edging works. BTW, is it stiff to be able to pound in the ground?
Let us know how this material works.
Anyway, on the edging, this is what I am trying to do with my beds. They are rectangular for the most part. Started sort-of French colonial style, and morphed and whatever as gardens do.... Was real tired of grass and the bramble thing coming in. Have used the 4' green plastic edgers from The Box stores. I guess about 5-6" wide. Clean out the bed on the edge from grass and stuff. Push or pound that edger down to ground level, more-or -less. Then put a wood landscape timber over that. Make sense?!*! I have seen at the same Box Stores, flex edging for more curved and organic shaped beds. End result in mine is you do not see the plastic. And I want it as deep as possible. Stuff grows here.
Do let us know how the other edging works. BTW, is it stiff to be able to pound in the ground?
Let us know how this material works.
I use always a high quality strimmer resist lawn edging.
My experience of 15 years garden design and maintenance and consulting for private and commercial- helped me to examined a lot of edgings ideas and in addition I studied it as well as I could before I started to import to the UK recycled plastic Lawn edging.
So my tips for you:
1. Do not go for very very thin and cheap plastic garden edging as it is not durable enough and if exposed to UV or tool- you will need to replace in 1-3 years.
Sure a bad idea as there is some work to do and digging out an edging wich is al broken is not a nice thing to do.
2. Any heavy duty edging made from recycled plastic Is usually my choise- It tend to last many years- 1-3 mm thick is usually a good value for money.
use 2mm lawn edging when you want to use it as a guide for a strimmer/lawn mower.
3. Look first at how deep are the roots of your lawn:
some are very shallow if the bed are not very low than it means that you can use low edging such as 10-12 cm- usually in cold turf.
If the roots are deep (- in many worm climate) so use 15 cm deep edging.
before installing -it can be exactly the time to create some changes so I would say use the old trick with laying a hose/ electric cable where you want to have the edging and change the shape by moving it till you are happy with the new shape of the lawn.
to save a bit more: buy direct and in bigger packs if needed.
hope it helps,
there are more clips to show how on the website
all the best
Ofer
My experience of 15 years garden design and maintenance and consulting for private and commercial- helped me to examined a lot of edgings ideas and in addition I studied it as well as I could before I started to import to the UK recycled plastic Lawn edging.
So my tips for you:
1. Do not go for very very thin and cheap plastic garden edging as it is not durable enough and if exposed to UV or tool- you will need to replace in 1-3 years.
Sure a bad idea as there is some work to do and digging out an edging wich is al broken is not a nice thing to do.
2. Any heavy duty edging made from recycled plastic Is usually my choise- It tend to last many years- 1-3 mm thick is usually a good value for money.
use 2mm lawn edging when you want to use it as a guide for a strimmer/lawn mower.
3. Look first at how deep are the roots of your lawn:
some are very shallow if the bed are not very low than it means that you can use low edging such as 10-12 cm- usually in cold turf.
If the roots are deep (- in many worm climate) so use 15 cm deep edging.
before installing -it can be exactly the time to create some changes so I would say use the old trick with laying a hose/ electric cable where you want to have the edging and change the shape by moving it till you are happy with the new shape of the lawn.
to save a bit more: buy direct and in bigger packs if needed.
hope it helps,
there are more clips to show how on the website
all the best
Ofer
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Lowe's here in the SE carries it, and I am pretty certain most of the other major corporate home improvement/gardencenters carry it. you can fnd same product sold in as a large disk as a tree mulch
I can see it's appeal.. ya know recycling a product that is hard to be rid of, the durability, cost amoritized over time, yadda yadda.
Umm The particlar broduct in question is supposed to be laid flat on ground as a "mower strip" mor than as vertically as an edging.
See, I have always held that edging products were the plant equivilant of animal pens. Keep what you want in, in and out out. Most cases, valued plants in the beds and the lawn out of the beds.
It has always seemed to me that the pourous nature of the the matting would actually allow roots to penetrate into places they shouldnt be. I definalty would not use it to try to keep Mint Family plants contained.
But as a mow strip, or perhaps in building borders where there is gutter leakage causing erposion, I would be all for it.
I so tottaly aggree with Ofer, It is actually funny.. But I am strange little weed...
Yeah All those sheap little 'labor saving easy to install' or what I call "hammer in" edging is nothing more than a joke. Is a real pain in the butt to install, especially in heavy , rocky or rootfilled soils. The plastic they are made of is not very weatrher resistant, tend to become brittle after a season or two, chipping and breaking when hit with string trimmers, let alone run over by a powermower.
This is a place where I would not go cheap. costs same if not more in the long run. I have also learned that Landscapers all have thier favorites.
The heavy duty professional grade 'roll edging' is excellent.. Can be a bit of a handful to manuver if it is cold. You will have to cut a slit in the soil or install it when you first dig your beds, which is a little bit of a chore. Takes to gentle flowing bed designs with no problems
Metal edging, both the enamled steel and anodized aluminum are excellent, but very expensive per foot and more involved to install. Require special stakes and such. can be bent into custom curves But they WILL last forever. I doubt even a powered brushblade could cause much harm. Mayby a gouge or two.
The preformed cement sectional edging and tree rings are nice stuff. Good combination of inexpensive and durable. many different designs to chose from.. Scalloped is most popular. Thing with those is that your bed designs are limited to the fixed radius curves and straight lines. okay there is enough play in how the straights meet to make very large radius curves.
Oh! almost forgot.. bricks and pavers. I have seen wonderful edges using both. can be as cheap as free or as sky's the limit. well, being brick or cement, tough as it gets. Lots of labor, but done right, looks amazing!
okay that is all I have on edging
Rember my trinity of cost time and quality
Can have any combination of two at the expense of the third
Oh and cheap and easy usually isnt after all
I can see it's appeal.. ya know recycling a product that is hard to be rid of, the durability, cost amoritized over time, yadda yadda.
Umm The particlar broduct in question is supposed to be laid flat on ground as a "mower strip" mor than as vertically as an edging.
See, I have always held that edging products were the plant equivilant of animal pens. Keep what you want in, in and out out. Most cases, valued plants in the beds and the lawn out of the beds.
It has always seemed to me that the pourous nature of the the matting would actually allow roots to penetrate into places they shouldnt be. I definalty would not use it to try to keep Mint Family plants contained.
But as a mow strip, or perhaps in building borders where there is gutter leakage causing erposion, I would be all for it.
I so tottaly aggree with Ofer, It is actually funny.. But I am strange little weed...
Yeah All those sheap little 'labor saving easy to install' or what I call "hammer in" edging is nothing more than a joke. Is a real pain in the butt to install, especially in heavy , rocky or rootfilled soils. The plastic they are made of is not very weatrher resistant, tend to become brittle after a season or two, chipping and breaking when hit with string trimmers, let alone run over by a powermower.
This is a place where I would not go cheap. costs same if not more in the long run. I have also learned that Landscapers all have thier favorites.
The heavy duty professional grade 'roll edging' is excellent.. Can be a bit of a handful to manuver if it is cold. You will have to cut a slit in the soil or install it when you first dig your beds, which is a little bit of a chore. Takes to gentle flowing bed designs with no problems
Metal edging, both the enamled steel and anodized aluminum are excellent, but very expensive per foot and more involved to install. Require special stakes and such. can be bent into custom curves But they WILL last forever. I doubt even a powered brushblade could cause much harm. Mayby a gouge or two.
The preformed cement sectional edging and tree rings are nice stuff. Good combination of inexpensive and durable. many different designs to chose from.. Scalloped is most popular. Thing with those is that your bed designs are limited to the fixed radius curves and straight lines. okay there is enough play in how the straights meet to make very large radius curves.
Oh! almost forgot.. bricks and pavers. I have seen wonderful edges using both. can be as cheap as free or as sky's the limit. well, being brick or cement, tough as it gets. Lots of labor, but done right, looks amazing!
okay that is all I have on edging
Rember my trinity of cost time and quality
Can have any combination of two at the expense of the third
Oh and cheap and easy usually isnt after all
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Hi Nancy,
I am not a fan of tire chip in any form on the garden; while[url=https://www.actahort.org/members/showpdf?booknrarnr=446_46]some studies[/url]find plant toxicity not to be an isse, even they admit leaching of long term soil pollutants like zinc, cadmium, lead and barium. Other findings like [url=https://www.ehhi.org/reports/turf/health_effects.shtml]these[/url] say rubber chips are degassing as well as leaching, releasing a number of known carcinogens as volatile gasses.
There is a huge industry growing around turning this surplus of toxic waste into a marketable product instead of [url=https://www.energyjustice.net/tires/files/greenpeaceletter.html]burning it[/url]. While Ol' Helpful agrees this is not a good way to get rid of these pollutants, grinding them up and spreading them around seems liek a bad idea too. Go ahead and Google "rubber tire chip" and see where they want to put most of this stuff. These people have no shame and no scruples and they will buy scientists to whitewash this. [url=https://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~Linda%20Chalker-Scott/Horticultural%20Myths_files/Myths/Rubber%20mulch.pdf]Tire chip leaches toxins[/url] like arsenic, fer cryin out loud! Among a BUNCH of other things and THIS is what we are going to put in playgrounds?
So Nancy, not around food for sure, okay? And you probably just shouldn't use it all, especially if you drink your groundwater, but somebody somewhere is going to end up drinking it, right?
HG
I am not a fan of tire chip in any form on the garden; while[url=https://www.actahort.org/members/showpdf?booknrarnr=446_46]some studies[/url]find plant toxicity not to be an isse, even they admit leaching of long term soil pollutants like zinc, cadmium, lead and barium. Other findings like [url=https://www.ehhi.org/reports/turf/health_effects.shtml]these[/url] say rubber chips are degassing as well as leaching, releasing a number of known carcinogens as volatile gasses.
There is a huge industry growing around turning this surplus of toxic waste into a marketable product instead of [url=https://www.energyjustice.net/tires/files/greenpeaceletter.html]burning it[/url]. While Ol' Helpful agrees this is not a good way to get rid of these pollutants, grinding them up and spreading them around seems liek a bad idea too. Go ahead and Google "rubber tire chip" and see where they want to put most of this stuff. These people have no shame and no scruples and they will buy scientists to whitewash this. [url=https://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~Linda%20Chalker-Scott/Horticultural%20Myths_files/Myths/Rubber%20mulch.pdf]Tire chip leaches toxins[/url] like arsenic, fer cryin out loud! Among a BUNCH of other things and THIS is what we are going to put in playgrounds?
So Nancy, not around food for sure, okay? And you probably just shouldn't use it all, especially if you drink your groundwater, but somebody somewhere is going to end up drinking it, right?
HG
Rubber and plastic are diffrent products, Heavy duty edging is made from HDPE- such as recycled plastic water pipes and bottle drink so to say that it leach? In fact it is very stable and that is why used for bottle drinks.
In fact, I would suggest that you google injury pet dog metal edging and be shocked.[/img]
In fact, I would suggest that you google injury pet dog metal edging and be shocked.[/img]