Creating Border Gardens
Creating a border garden is a wonderful way to
improve the overall look of your yard in general, and create
dividing lines between specific areas or sections. If for instance,
you want to divide your front yard space from the back yard, you
could put a border garden in that will look pretty and define the
space, without taking up a lot of room or completely blocking the
view.
Border gardens look particularly nice when placed around the outside
edge of a lawn or yard area, though. These small garden beds will
define the border of your property, make it look much more
appealing, and are usually less expensive than installing a full
fledged fence. Plus the border gardens usually accent the yard
instead of blocking it from view inside or out.
A border garden is often made just like other types of garden beds
are, but they're designed to sit low on the ground. They usually
have small or dainty plants in them because they're used more for
accent and appeal instead of creating barriers.
Almost any kind of garden bed border material can be used, too. If
you have a brick house for instance, you could use matching bricks
to line your border garden.
Alternatively, you could by small river
rocks or stones, which are larger than pebbles but not as big as
boulders are, and use those for the garden bed border.
There are also plenty of decorative, inexpensive pre-molded borders
you can buy too, and these are usually sold in any garden center,
nursery, or discount department store. Some are designed to look
like small picket fences, and others look like a low rock wall.
There are some which look like small wooden piers or railroad ties, so the design ideas are almost limitless.
To plan your border garden you'll need to take some initial
measurements of the space your garden will go around. If for
example, you're putting a border garden around the outside
boundaries of your front lawn, then you would need to measure the
length of each side of the yard which will have the border garden
installed.
Since border gardens tend to be built low to the ground, you
normally just need to buy enough materials for each side of your
garden one layer deep. If you're using bricks for instance, you'd
lay the bricks end to end when creating your garden border, but you
wouldn't need enough bricks to put a second row on top of the first
unless you wanted the garden border to be a little higher.
In most cases, once you've purchased your border materials, all you
need to do is lay them out into their designated spaces. Using our
bricks example, you'd place the bricks end to end laying on their
sides, at the farthest outside perimeter of your yard. Create a line
of bricks all the way down one edge, then turn the corner when you
get to it and butt the first brick for the next side up against the
last brick from the side you just finished.
Once you have the entire outside area laid, then you simply start
laying an identical line of bricks approximately one to two feet
from the last line you created. This line will be inside your yard
perimeter, and will make up the front of your border garden bed.
Your border material will sink into the soil slightly and become
more stable over time, but you can help it along by soaking the
areas you're placing them, and pushing down firmly as you lay the
material around your yard.
Once the border is completed, all you have to do is put in some
plants and flowers. You can simply dig small holes in the existing
grass area within your new border, or you can spread a thin layer of
new topsoil to plant in instead. Be sure to space your plants
appropriately so they won't crowd each other out as they mature.
