OMG, why is decent edging so hard to find? Please help!

[grace0418]

Hi everyone! I live in a condo building in Chicago. Directly outside our front door are two small squares of "lawn" that we try to keep nice-looking. We have bushes and flowers and grass. Unfortunately, we live on a corner so people walking their dogs (and some feral children on our block) seem to think our front lawn is fair game. This is especially annoying to those of us with ground floor units when dogs come nosing around our lower level windows.

We've found that installing a little edging around the grass provides enough of a psychological border to keep all but the most rude people from letting their dogs and children from wreaking total havoc on our lawn. However, right now we have hideous plastic "decorative" edging that comes apart with a heavy rain or gust of wind. I went to several stores and couldn't find anything that was attractive, heavy duty, simple and relatively inexpensive. It was either hideous plastic or fake stone, or thin wire that won't last more than a week, or ornate metal that's too busy and way too expensive.

What I really want is the stuff you often see in public parks. It almost looks like rebar bent into short loops (it only sticks a few inches out of the ground) that overlap a bit. Simple and sturdy. WHY is that so hard to find? I've been googling for 2 days with no luck. Does anyone know where to find this or something similar? Or does anyone have ideas on how to make something relatively inexpensively that is not plastic, not too ornate, sturdy and simple? I am all ears! I was trying to think of something I could find from another area of the hardware store that might work but I'm drawing a blank. Thanks in advance!

Oh, and wood or bamboo won't work in this space. The building is a vintage brick building and really needs metal in my opinion. Also, we need 64' of whatever we finally get. Thanks again!

[Pineville]

You get what pay for. Good steel edging or aluminum edging is expensive. I usually pay anywhere from $40.00 (1/8" thick) to $80.00 (1/4" thick) for a 16' piece of steel edging. I have not seen what you refer to as 'rebar bent into short loops'.

Steel edging and aluminum edging are available at landscape supply businesses as well as paver supply stores.

[bullthistle]

Plant some barberry or pyracanta plants that might keep them away but then you'll have berry's in the fall.

[grace0418]

Maybe my description is wrong. Maybe I don't need edging so much as a border. I'm not trying to create a flower bed, just provide a little psychological barrier to keep people from trampling our little lawn.

And there really isn't enough room to use plants as a barrier. It needs to be a material of some kind, preferably metal.

This is the closest thing I've found to what I've been describing...

https://www.northstarwroughtiron.com/productdetails.asp?Item=106#

I'm concerned about it being .125" thick, I can't tell if that will be sturdy enough. I know it will be sturdier than that awful wire stuff that comes on a roll, but I would really like it to stay in place for at least the whole summer.

[gardeningwithe]

I'm curious - what did you end up with. Bricks were a great suggestion you could also do some sort of stone. Hope whatever you picked suited you!

[Bobberman]

They sale bamboo heavy duty 5 foot sections 12 in a bag for about $15. you could cut them into one foot sections and pound them in and connect the 5 foot section to the top and have a 8 inch high border. Bamboo is stronger than steel and will last for years!