Edging ideas for slope with solid roots

[pinksand]

I'm completely stumped as to how I can edge a wooded section of "garden" on the edge of our property. I've posted about this section of garden before here https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/vi ... =5&t=57500

Since that post was made, we discovered that more like 2/3 of the space is ours. It's a section of garden that I'd like to keep very low maintenance since ripping out the neighbors creeping vines is already so consuming of my time in that space. However, it's so close to the street that I'd like for it to be pretty as well for the sake of passerby's . I purchased a bunch of clearance plants and got some free divisions from neighbors last fall and now have several christmas ferns, perennial geranium, japanese painted fern, variegated sedge, foam flowers and the epimedium mentioned in my linked post.

The problem is that now I'd like to mulch the space but since it's sloped and not edged, the mulch just slides down into the grass/weeds and looks sloppy. It also confuses my husband as to where he should mow and he assumes the weeds are part of the bed since they're mulched. The side of the garden is edged with shrubs which works great, however the bottom of the garden just ends and then there's about 8 feet of weeds/grass between the garden and the street. I don't want to extend the garden to the street because neighbors and friends often park there a bit into the grass (no sidewalks and tight street). It's also tricky since 1/3 of the space is my neighbors so edging it is awkward.

Last year I attempted to edge it with a trench but could only dig down a couple of inches due to the dense roots in the area. I thought about building a little retaining wall with those interlocking blocks, but again the issue of not being able to dig down creates a problem. Anything resting on the top of the soil would likely slide down due to the slope so that leaves me completely stumped! I also can't continue the edging with shrubs since I can't dig down deep enough to plant anything but shallow rooted plants.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! Keep in mind I don't want to invest too much in this space.

[applestar]

This is one of my wild ideas, so it needs to be noodled over to see if it's do-able.

One of my New Project! For this year is hypertufa. I'm going to get started learning and experimenting as soon a spring planting is mostly done and I can clear some space.

So it occurred to me that if you set up some kind of a framed mold, such as they make for street curbs, you could probably pour a contoured edging. If you dig/drill a few vertical shafts past the roots and pound rebars in the middle of the shafts to stick up into the edging portion (but submerged at the top), that should provide the supports needed to keep the edging from sliding away.

[pinksand]

Applestar, that is a really clever and intimidating idea! I've never worked with concrete before so that's the intimidating part to me, but it does sound like something that would probably work and hold well.

Here's another question... how much of an issue is it for me to hack at the roots? Will the trees suffer if I were to really dig in there? It's tricky because I'm not sure which tree they belong to. We had a couple dead trees removed from the area so they could be primarily roots from one of those trees, who knows!

Also, I really can't figure out how to end the edging with part of the space belonging to my neighbors. It's such a weird space I'll try to take a photo.

[rainbowgardener]

I don't know if it is the "best" way, but the easiest way might be just to get some plastic pound-in edging, with a sharp bottom edge, something like this:



Just use a heavy hammer to pound it in.

You probably will need to do some cutting through some of the roots with a good garden knife first, along the line where you want the edging to go. Trees have a LOT of roots. You won't harm the tree by cutting a few of them. A friend of mine gave me a knife like this, years ago. It is one of my favorite garden tools.

[pinksand]

Well that might be my biggest mistake... thinking I shouldn't hurt the roots lol. I don't even think I hit anything substantial, just dense mats of little roots.

I'm typically not a huge fan of the plastic edging, but honestly it's sort of my afterthought garden since it's not in a space where I get to enjoy it so maybe that would be appropriate here. It also wouldn't be a very expensive investment in either time and money.