3 Garden Edging Ideas That Make Your Garden Look Expensive!

Most gardens look unfinished because the edges are a complete mess. But I'm about to show you three edging ideas that will completely transform the look of your garden. And the best bit? Well, they're all DIY friendly. From cheap and simple to more premium look and finishes, and we're going to see what difference each one makes. So the first job we're going to do to transform the garden is install concrete edging. Now this is a great way to break up the garden, install things like paths and borders, and make the garden look really tidy. People pay landscapers about £60 a metre to come and install this stuff, and it's actually a really easy job that you can do yourself. You can see we've already got some edgings along here, our path's going to run along there, along the front of the workshop there, and it's going to meet this edging that we've already installed over here. But how do we get a perfectly straight edge and not a wobbly one? Well, the key to that is a string line, and I'll link one in the description. They're really cheap, and they're easy to use, and they'll give you the perfectly straight edge. I use a simple timber stake hit into the ground, and I've got my string line right along the back edge of my existing edging. Now, of course, if you're doing this from scratch, you probably aren't going to have existing edgings, so you'll probably have to work out the levels and heights that you need from scratch, whether that be off a building or whatever edging you're going up to. That's going to be different for all of you, so what you need to do is work out all of that first. So we've got a nice straight line running all the way down there, and I want the same measurement off that sleeper over there, which is perfect. That is exactly what I want, and I've got my other stake in this end, so I know that that's a dead straight line that we can follow. So we've got a straight line we can put the back of our edgings up against so that we know we keep them dead straight, but how do we get the level right? Well, you can just use a level and work off the first one, keep leveling as you go, but I've got a bit of tech that makes it a lot easier for me, the Hue Power Rotating Laser Level. The good thing about this is I can set my receiver to talk to that laser, and I can set the exact height on the start of the string line. Once we get that, we can then do that up the other end, so no matter the distance that we go, you might have a huge garden, and that's why this is really easy, because we can do exactly the same thing up this end, and once we get that single tone, we know it's exactly the same height as the other end. So every single edging that we install, we just install to the line, and that makes things really, really simple. I'll link the Hue Power Rotating Laser Level in the description, it's something I would not be without, it's one of the best landscaping tools I've got, but I appreciate they are quite expensive, and those of you that haven't got one, well you're going to need to resort to one of these, a big long six foot level. Now we're ready to start laying some edging, you're going to want some of this ballast, that is sand and stone, and that's going to be perfect for our concrete mix to concrete these things in. You can buy this from any DIY store, or you can buy it in ton bags from a builder's merchant. Now you don't need to use a cement mixer for your mix, you can use a big board, or mix it in the barrel, but I have one at hand so I might as well use it. All I'm going to do is pop my plasticizer in, and then I'm making a six to one mix with my ballast and cement. The consistency of the mix wants to be fluffy and not too thick, because we want to be able to shape it, and what we call haunch with it, which I'll show you in a little while. So we're ready to lay, I've got an off cut of edging, and I want to just dummy that up, and when I look under there I can see I've got a couple of inches of concrete underneath it. That's all we need, because you'll see when we haunch it, we're going to create such a massive heavy block that it's not going to go anywhere. I mean this is solid look, and there's only a couple of inches of concrete under it. Once it's all back filled, it's going to go nowhere. The idea is you only really see the top of it anyway, everything around it gets compacted, and it stays there. So we don't need any hardcore in the bottom there, we just need to make sure we can get a couple of inches of our concrete underneath it. Now our mix can go in all the way along. A nice brick trowel for this, and that will allow you to just flatten that off. It's a hot day today, I'm just going to wet that edging, because that's going to suck that concrete dry really quickly. I'm going to lay it on there, you can see it's slightly high of the line at the moment. I'm going to line it up so it's about a millimetre off the back of the line there, and then I use the weight of a lump hammer to tap it down to get the perfect level. There we go, a mil or two off the line, perfectly level across it, and lined up nicely to the previous one. As long as we follow the line, we can keep going like that. If you haven't got a line set, remember you can just use a level, that is absolutely bang on. Look how level that is. So you can see I've laid three of them on a bed of concrete, and now we're going to use some of that concrete to do what we call haunching. Now that's going to set them in nice and solid, but also we're going to angle it slightly so that water runs away under things like grass, you want the water to run away. And when it all ties in, it'll become one huge lump of concrete that will never move. I'll do that to both sides, and now it's gone off, you'll see that I've got perfectly straight and neat looking concrete edging. And the next little job that we're going to do to improve our garden is going to put that edging to use perfectly. Dog, will you get out of the camera? Can't get the stuff, can you? So I want a clean, decorative bark area here without spending loads on materials, and one of the biggest expenses is weed membrane. Now weed membrane, this stuff, the good thick stuff, is really expensive. If you were to use that along this whole edge, it'd probably cost me about £50, and by the time you use the pins to fix the stuff down, well, the job becomes pretty expensive. And believe it or not, it's actually not the best way to do it. Here's what we're going to use. Cardboard. Cheap and more effective than you'd ever believe. But for a nice tidy bark edge, and the first thing we need to do is tidy the area up, because look how many weeds and things like that are in there, and you can't just throw stuff over the top. You have got to do a little bit of prep first. You can see there's a lot of perennial type of weeds in there, things with roots still on them. They could potentially grow back through. So what we want to do is dig all those out first, level the area. The soft weeds, things like the grasses and that kind of thing, they'll die with the cardboard when they've got no light. So they will actually die down, but it's the big stuff. We want to get that out before we lay anything in there. So we're now going to lay our cardboard, but why not weed membrane? Well, weed membrane, of course, is permeable, right? Water is designed to get through, moisture gets through it, that kind of thing. And what happens is once this clogs up, the bark actually breaks down over time, forms a layer on top of the weed membrane, and then you get weeds anyway. So the main downside is aside from being pretty expensive, you then get weeds anyway. So you might as well use something a lot cheaper. And that's where the cardboard comes in, and that will actually kill the weeds because of course there's no light, so they can't grow. Then what happens, it breaks down, it improves the soil quality, and the bark then takes over the job, but you've got to have the right thickness, I'll show you that in a minute, of stopping the weeds from growing. It's a much more natural, simple, and cheap way of getting a perfect edging. And you know what the best bit is? Well, it's free. So we've split our cardboard boxes down, we've got some big, some small ones, and we're going to lay them in. Make sure you cover all the soil underneath, because you want to kill anything underneath. And you want to overlap it a little bit as well, just to make sure that you are getting good coverage, because the next step, when we trample it down, of course it's going to move a little bit. So we'll lay a load of cardboard in, do a section at a time, then I'll show you the next step. Once you've got good coverage with your cardboard, you want to wet it, and get it really soaking wet, because that'll help it to break down easier, give it a good start, and also it's going to help us when we want to trample it into shape, so we can get our bark on top. You'll probably want to do this wet and bit a few times, especially if it's quite a warm day, because it's going to dry out. And now I'm walking back and forth over the cardboard to trample it into the ground. And this is the bit that's going to take the shape of what's underneath, and kill all them weeds, because it's going to be dark under there, they ain't going to be able to grow, and they're going to die. Now the cardboard's down, we can get some bark on top. And I got these 100 litre bags of bark chip from Wicks for about £8.50. Little tip, carry them to where you want them before you split them, but they are blooming heavy. Blooming, that's a really Norfolk word. I'm going to split the bags of bark so that I can tip them out, and now we're going to give this a good rake around, but this is the bit that most people get wrong. You need to have the right depth in the bark to stop the weeds from reappearing. There's a lot of big clumps that we need to break up with the rake before we worry about a final level. And it's not taken us long to repeat the whole process all the way along the garden. So here's the bit most people get wrong. Depth. Grab a tape measure, and just measure your depth. So I've got 90mm just there, I want at least 75mm to 100mm. That's going to stop the weeds from growing because of course no light can get through and there's no soil going to sit on any weed matting, so technically no weeds should be able to grow. I like these nice big asphalt rakes, they're great for garden work like this. Bark stones, because they're really heavy and thick, they're much better than a leaf rake. Just rake it around until you get at least 75mm, and then once you're happy with the level give it a good soak in the water. Going to retain loads of moisture under there, under that bark, and that cardboard will start to break down nicely. That'll allow the worms and all that kind of stuff to keep the soil quality really good. If you like this video, don't forget to subscribe because there's lots more handy things coming this summer that'll help you out. Now there's still a place for heavy duty weed membrane, under stones I'd still recommend this stuff, stones don't break down and they don't clog it up, but a roll of this for this big area would have cost me £40, then you've got the pegs which are about £6 a pack, I'd have probably needed a few packs of that, you're talking over £50 saved just by using the cardboard. So we'll get rid of that, but look at that, I'm pleased with that result, it's tidied this area up. That's a massive area and it's only taken me an hour and a half to get it all looking really nice. Now I'll have to make sure that every year I do a little top up, bark does break down, you can't rely on it to stay like that forever. So are you going to stick with weed membrane, or are you going to give this cheap cardboard method a go? Let me know down in the comments. Now your other option is this stuff, decorative gravel or stone, this is called black ice. Now it looks amazing when it's in, it's actually a really premium finish, but the downside of it, it's really expensive. A tonne bag of this cost me about, I think it was about £160, but it is going to look nice and we're going to show you how to lay this. Our patio is going to slope away from the house, but it'll still help with any drainage along the front of the house, and we have calculated that we're going to finish it 150mm below the damp course. So if you are going along a building front, you want to be about 150mm below the damp course of the bricks. But the first thing we need to do is get the mat that we didn't use for the bark and put it in there. Because we're not going to use cardboard in there, stone doesn't break down, it won't clog the mat up, it'll be perfect to cut to shape for that little area there. The best way I find to do this is to use a sharp pair of scissors and follow the lines on the mat so that you get a nice square cut and don't run off lines. Right, now we're going to lay the weed mat down in the edging, covering any soil thoroughly. If you want to, you can save money here again, use rocks to weigh it down if you're doing a big area so it doesn't blow away. Or you can buy the pegs that I linked on the bark bit, I'll link them in the description, you can hit them in to keep it in place, but that's the more expensive option. Black ice looks so good because it's made up from black basalt and white and grey coloured stone to give it that nice effect. I want the stone to come right to the top of my concrete edging so I finish off the level by hand to make sure it looks perfect. So it's starting to look really tidy with the concrete edging which we've put all the way around the garden. The thing you'll find is when you lay black ice, it always looks really dusty and you don't get the true colour. So to get an instant effect, I like to spray it with water to rinse all the dust off. Now you can see the dust is gone, all the different colours of stone have come to the surface and you get that nice black ice effect. So that is looking really smart, as is my bark edging. Now this was done three weeks before this bit was filmed and as you can see, there's no weeds and it's looking really, really nice. So there's three options for you, how you can transform your garden and each one of them is pretty easy to do. The edging is probably the first place you want to start because that gives you them clean lines and then you can fill it with stone or bark or in our case, we're about to lay a nice new patio. So honestly, edging is probably one of the easiest ways you can transform the look of your garden. Let me know down below in the comments which one you're going to use and click on one of these videos to learn more about outdoor projects and I'll see you in the next one.