When you are considering landscaping borders there are countless choices as well as a wide range of prices.  The ultimate decision on what landscape edging borders you will use will be based on what you can afford and what kind of look are you trying to achieve.

Most of the time we create borders in our landscape designs we don’t use landscape edging borders.  Instead we dig a shallow trench along the edge of the bed island.  This makes a nice crisp edge and also creates a natural catch for the mulch choice you are using in the island. 

The use of landscaping borders becomes a necessity when you are creating a small garden or a specialty garden.  One of the more popular specialty gardens we build are Japanese Gardens.  These simple gardens can be very eye-catching and inexpensive to create.  The trick is to utilize authentic materials in the creation of the garden.  Some of these authentic materials are bamboo and a Japanese Lantern.  You might spend some money on the lantern but it will be the center feature of the garden and will pay off in the long run as this is what really draws your attention.  A great addition to the lantern is to install a low voltage light inside of the lantern so it will light up at night.  Very Cool!!!!

When incorporating bamboo into the garden on of the best ways to do this is to utilize these great little borders into the garden. 

Bamboo Border Black

 
Bamboo Border

These are both great choices for landscape edging borders but the imagination can be the best creator.  We have used granite tumbled stone, landscape timbers cut into pieces, small borders and the list goes on.  The trick is to use a material that naturally fits with the rest of the garden.  This is one of the reasons we never use the cheaper plastic borders.  They are not natural enough and in the end detract from the landscape instead of add to it. 

Another element in a small garden are stepping stones.  Here is a great post and video on how to install stepping stones.