The Creek Line House

How to Edge a Flower Bed

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Create amazingly beautiful flower beds in your yard this spring with one easy tip.  Here’s how to edge a flower bed quickly and easily so you can have your own professional-looking gardens to enjoy.

Create amazingly beautiful flower beds in your yard this spring with one easy tip.  Here's how to edge a flower bed quickly and easily and have your own professional-looking gardens to enjoy. I’m always feeling like I’m learning things that everyone else already knows and this was one of those things. Still, I was pretty excited to demystify this little gardening tidbit for myself, so I’m sharing it with you anyway. 🙂 I first shared this idea a few years ago, but I definitely think it’s worth re-sharing since a lot of us are probably pretty excited to get out and make the most of this beautiful weather now that winter has finally come to an end!   If you’re thinking about adding in a new flower garden this year or hope to spruce up an existing one, I hope this simple tip for how to edge a flower bed comes in handy for you!

(Update: I can’t believe how different our backyard looks now compared to how it looked back in these photos.  You can see for yourself how much the garden has filled-in over the years by following me on Instagram and watching my stories.)

Crisp, Clean Look

Chris has always been the one to make our gardens look all neat and tidy. I didn’t really even realize that there was a certain technique to it. I just thought he was really patient with a shovel or something. Actually, I didn’t really know what he did. I always thought that to make a garden, all you did was remove the grass, stick some plants in it and mulch it. Then somehow it magically turned into something like looked like a garden and not just some flowers planted in the middle of the grass.

We’ve been working slowly on the back yard over the last few years and we thought it might be good to map out a big flower/shrub garden across the whole back middle section of the house where the giant wheelchair ramp used to be before we tore it down.

How to Edge a Flower Bed - New Bed? Create your layout

Get Your Hands a Little Dirty

We started hacking up the parts where there was grass growing, although there wasn’t that much since it had been covered in that ramp for so long. When we had an idea for how it was going to look, I went to get a load of mulch. Chris suggested I might want to start edging the garden first and explained to dig a little trench about a few inches deep along the border of where the garden goes. At this point, I feel like I need to point out that I’m really not quite as dumb as this story makes me sound. 🙂

But anyway.

I grabbed a little trowel and got to work.

How to Edge a Flower Bed - Clean, Crisp Edge

Um, no.

How to Edge a Flower Bed

At this point Chris was like, “You know that little shovel we have that’s really kind of flat and sharp? I find that works pretty well.”

I gave it a try and I was all, “Wow! This actually works really well. It really gives this super crisp edge. Seriously, Chris, it’s almost like it was made just for this job…. oh… wait a second. It is made to edge a flower bed isn’t it?”

Then I dropped my shovel and ran for my camera because I’d just learned something super valuable to share with all of my fellow gardener wannabes out there.

So this is what that shovel/edger looks like:

How to Edge a Flower Bed - The proper tool

You can get some edgers in the garden section that look like this too, but I think they’re more meant for cutting through grass.

Buy your own! Click here!
..or there’s always something like this if you need a little more power!
How to Edge a Flower Bed - Clean, Crisp Edge

Here was my second attempt at edging, this time using the right tool. I just carved down about three inches and then lifted the excess soil up and onto where the garden was going to be.

How to Edge a Flower Bed - Looks good already

Here’s a section where the (somewhat trampled) lawn is already growing up to the edge of the new garden. Look how crisp that is!

OK, all of you real gardener people can stop laughing now.

My point is, if you’re still relatively new to gardening like I am, it’s still really easy to get those amazing professional-looking flower beds that you see all the expert gardeners enjoying in their yards. Give it a try! You’ll be hooked!

Create amazingly beautiful flower beds in your yard this spring with one easy tip.  Here's how to edge a flower bed quickly and easily so you can have your own professional-looking gardens to enjoy.

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Comments

  1. Jill Frank says

    Thanks for the chuckle! All part of the learning process. FYI – check out your local waste management location (garbage dump). They may sell mulch – cheap. We have done that for years and never had any problem. Around here is sells for $22/3cubic yards, but in reality you get closer to 5 cubic yards. Enjoy your adventures!

    Reply

  3. Andrea Chambliss says

    Courtney, I did exactly what you did and then I went out and purchased a manual edger. Moving things around in the garage later on I found my electric edger. 🙂

    Reply

  4. Andrea Chambliss says

    I did the same thing that you did in my attempt to enlarge my gardening bed. I went out to purchase a manual edger and things went more smoothly. While put the tools up in my garage…I found my unused electric edger. LOL

    Reply

  5. Nichole says

    This cracked me up! I also learned a useful trick when in the planning stages. If you lay a garden house out along the lines of where you wanna dig, you can get a visual first. I lay the house around the entire perimeter, then spray the grass where my hose is and then cut away. 🙂

    Reply

    • Cecile - My Yellow Farmhouse says

      I’ve done both laying out a garden hose, for a HUGE garden when we had our farm in Quebec – and I’ve sprayed the shape I wanted with with spray paint for a smaller garden.
      I didn’t think the spray – for the big garden – where I had laid the garden hose. And now I know!!

      Reply

  7. LiveLoveDIY says

    Okay, I totally just had the same ‘moment’. I have one of those in my garage and never knew why it was shaped so funny. Bahaha! Thanks for sharing your discovery, Court!! <3

    Reply

  9. Erica {let why lead} says

    “At this point, I feel like I need to point out that I’m not quite as dumb as this story makes me sound.” This is exactly why I like you. 🙂 And if it makes you feel any better, prior to reading this, I didn’t know a thing about edging a garden either.

    Reply

  10. Selena Gregory says

    Seriously! I have neen fiddling with gardening for 15 years, have an “expert” in my household, and I know we have this edging shovel. Yet I have to be on Pinterest to randomly find the link to this picture of a beautifully edged garden bed … and this is how I find out how to edge! What the .. WHAT?? Well, I sincerely appreciate you sharing. I had no idea. Makes me want to go out and re-edge all my flower beds. Thank you!

    Reply

  11. June Arras says

    Another great tip is….to lay out your path that you want to edge you can use a garden hose to lay it out first and use it as your guide. This ensures you get exactly the design that you want BEFORE you start digging 😉

    Reply

  12. allison says

    Thanks for learning as you go and sharing it with us. I have a new yard with alot of older plants and no boarders. The tips u shared have inspired me.

    Reply

    • Courtenay says

      Thanks, Allison! That means so much to me! I love to keep the curiosity alive when it comes to all the adventures I can have right on my own property. I’m so glad you get it. 🙂

      Reply

  13. Ali says

    This past month I have been breaking my back turning my long narrow fenced in backyard into gardens with a walking path. I am so jealous that you have grass and soil because I now live near the beach and all I have is sand and weeds. Had I had an edger I doubt it would of worked with sand, but what a cool idea. I did lay out my patterns with the garden hose though. Good luck with your flower beds, I am sure they will be beautiful.

    Reply

  14. mary puskar says

    You did a great job! There is a tool for home gardeners that is even better. I guess it’s called an edger but is half-moon shaped with a little ledge on one side. It creates a nice deep trench and cuts the sod better. Just a tip. Been gardening for over 45 years and never tire of it. You can see some of my garden over the years on my blog.

    Mary

    Reply

  15. Ro says

    This is just in time. My gardener didn’t return this spring and I have been learning and doing the gardening despite my usual outcome for plants(death) in my care. Thanks so much for your openness! Quick question- I have a struggling(possibly dead) hydrangea that was given to me as a gift. It’s a house plant. Is there anything that you could recommend? I’m trying Miracle Grow Plant Food to no avail.

    Reply

    • Courtenay says

      My hydrangeas at my old house used to do so well, but now my newer ones here aren’t very impressive at all. I used to take the ones you get as houseplants and plant them outside and they did well, even with the harsh Winters we had in our old city. I’m thinking that the location where you put them is really important. I’m going to be digging mine up here in the Spring and trying them somewhere else. They’re doing better this year than they were last (I’m thinking the coffee grounds may have helped), but still not what I want them to be! So basically, I’m no help, but good luck!

      Reply

  16. she says

    To keep your edges looking great use a string trimmer just hold it so the string is straight up and down with the edge. Cleans your edge quickly.

    Reply

  17. Laura Major says

    Well I’m right there with you because I never knew about that tool either! I’ve been “planting” for years now (can’t call what I do “gardening” because I’m not that good) BUT this might actually make me look like a gardener now! Lol 🙂

    Reply

    • Courtenay says

      Haha! It’s definitely one of those little tricks that makes you look like you suddenly know what you’re doing. 🙂

      Reply

  18. Christina says

    I’m so glad that you grabbed your camera! I have never gardened before, but we have a SUPER HUGE yard, and our grass grows extremely well! lol. So i want to landscape some to cut back on mowing. Now i know how to dig out my path, thanks to you! 😉

    Reply

    • Courtenay says

      Yay! Good luck with that well-growing grass! We have really strong grass too and it keeps trying to take over our nicely edged flower beds!

      Reply

  20. Cecile @ My Yellow Farmhouse says

    Your edging came out great!! I’m a grandmother, so I’ve been gardening – mostly flowers – for decades. What you used is actually called a ‘spade’ & I bet it worked really well ! I have a garden edger that I’ve had forever and have moved from house to house, state to state and even to Quebec!! I always use the garden edger but why buy one since you had such good luck with a spade. ++ As one person commented, I have used a hose to lay out the design for a garden. When we had our farm in Quebec I laid out a 40 x 15 foot flower garden using a hose. The garden had two pathways which ended in a sitting area. I LOVE it soo much but sadly we had to sell our farm in Quebec – and I heard the new owners dug up all my flowers and put in a pool. But that’s OK – now I have beautiful gardens here at My Yellow Farmhouse in western Massachusetts. Wishing you all the best!! ; o )

    Reply

  21. Shirley says

    I have done the electric and the manual edging for several years. My problem is we have centipede grass that sends runners over the nice edge despite mulching. Anyone have any suggestions on how to keep it in its place, and not in my flower beds?

    Reply

    • Jerry W coley says

      Yes,out line it using round up,just don’t get any have it, on any thing,you don’t want dead!

      Reply

  23. LSessoms says

    The photo of the edger with the half-moon shape you included in your post, was shown in a YouTube video. I have looked every where online to find one like it, because watching the guy in the video use it, seemed much easier than using the straight spade. So, thank you for including that! Also, since we have clay soil in Oklahoma, I use a digging fork to get a straight edge in unbroken ground and it works well for areas in heavy clay without a lot of body strain!

    Reply

    • Courtenay says

      I’m so glad you found the link helpful! Sometimes it’s nice to see examples of things people mention in posts and I find I like to click on those links just for my own information as well. Thanks so much for sharing your tip about using the fork! Since moving out here to this big property, I can’t believe how often I actually use my pitch fork for things around the yard! I never really thought they were something that people actually used anymore, but they’re the best!

      Reply

      • Linda says

        You are so right, Courtenay! Just to clarify for those who are reading…pitch fork has long thinner tines and a digging fork (mine) has 4 or 5 very thick tines:)

        Reply

  25. Karol says

    I totally agree with your analysis of the weed block. Yearly I by a big bag of preen in early spring after cleanup I sprinkle like salt throughout the gardens. I try to plan for when there are a couple of days with light rain. It works great. May need another shake on the later.

    Reply

  26. Lana says

    Thank you so much for posting this article..with pictures! I just got done last night using the trowel method, stood back and thought, that doesn’t look right. I didn’t want to spend one penny on an edger or stones. Thanks to you, I know how to do it and the right tool for the job. The chuckle for me is I have the straight edge shovel in my shed. Never knew what to do with it. Keep posting the “simple” tips.

    Reply

    • Courtenay says

      Thanks so much, Lana! These are exactly the kinds of tips that I always find most useful too, so that’s why I just can’t help but share them. And for the record, I’m pretty sure I still have some garden tools in my garage that I’m not quite using correctly!

      Reply

  27. Melissa connolly says

    Everybody has to start somewhere when you love flowers and want to grow some of your own even the pro’s had to start somewhere and when you first start your garden nobody’s a professional so don’t be embarrassed cause we all have to learn im still learning. I get so happy when my hard work pays off when I see those beautiful buds bloom! Good luck to all those first starting a new garden!!!????

    Reply

  28. steve soule says

    Around trees I use a regular spade and mark the handle with masking tape for the distance away from the trunk. The slight radius on the spade makes for a crisper edge and the mark keeps the edge equal all around the tree.

    Reply

  29. steve soule says

    The use of the garden hose is a good one for contours, be sure to “test” the contour with your push or riding mower to see if your line is easy to work with.

    Reply

    • Courtenay says

      Great tip! A lot of our yard/garden plans are completely designed around how easy they will be to drive the riding mower around! 🙂

      Reply

  30. Lu says

    I’ve been a gardener for almost 3 decades, and read the article to see if I’ve missed anything new. Anyhow, I love how you wrote your article on this and especially how Chris handled you using the wrong tool for the job. It made me smile:) Thanks for sharing, you’re a great gardener already.

    Reply

  31. Camie Foote says

    Thank you so much. We have recently moved into my dad’s house and I’ve been wanting to do something to spruce it up all summer. Obviously, I’m a rookie like you once were, but anyway, I bought the mulch months ago and it has just been sitting in the back of the garage doing nothing! My dad has that kind of shovel and I might even start on it today! So thank you for the tip!!!

    Reply

  32. Sherry says

    Any advice on what to do if the new flower bed stays damp because it is on the north, which is the front of my house?

    Reply

    • Courtenay says

      Hi Sherry! I actually talk about this a little in my new book in the section about discouraging garden pests, specifically slugs, who like damp areas. Here’s what it says in the book 🙂 “Simply keeping your garden area drier can really help. Space plants out in your garden to allow sunlight in between your plants, water your plants in the morning so that your garden can dry out before nightfall, and try using underground irrigation hoses so you use less water overall and the water goes directly to the roots of your plants rather than creating a damp environment at the soil’s surface.” Hope that gives you a few ideas!

      Reply

  33. Jacqueline McIntosh says

    Hi Courtenay! I must say, I really enjoy your great stories! They are fabulous tips and bring a chuckle to my day. Thank yo so much for posting all of this great information and sharing your home and your stories. These are a joy to read.

    Reply

  34. DORLIS LEE GROTE says

    EVEN SERIOUS GARDENERS HAD TO START SOMEWHERE! YOU DID A GREAT JOB AND SHOULD BE PROUD OF YOUR WORK.

    Reply

  35. Plantlust says

    Fyi- to save your (and Chris’s) back, to create a new garden bed, just cover the area in overlapping layers of cardboard (plastic tape removed first, of course). Then add a 6inch to 1 foot layer of wood chips (sand, pine needles etc depending on what part of the country you live in). Water and let sit a bit.

    In my area, if you do this in the fall, you can plant directly into the mulch by spring.

    The cardboard smothers and kills the grass, which breaks down, any worms LOVE the channels in the cardboard, which also breaks down and you’ve eliminated all but the most persistent of weeds. As a bonus, cut down on the back pain, too!

    Happy gardening!

    Reply

  36. Arlie says

    I have used that half moon edger for years and it is my favorite tool. New landscape area now in front of my house as my old one was removed by my children for my Mothers Day gift. They thought it was time for a new landscape as mine was overgrown. I started with my edger after they removed all the plants and we tilled with good stuff to amend the soil. Anyway, the area is also under a big oak tree. My landscape area has mulch. Anyone have a favorite idea as how to clean away the leaves in the fall without also blowing away all the mulch. I know it will need new mulch in the spring, but so many leaves can really make it difficult.

    Reply

  37. Allison Bochicchio says

    Your dialog is hysterical but I love it! I can totally relate to seeing something and NOT realizing how it goes from UGH! to AHhh!! and the correct process of how to do it 😂 I enjoyed reading this and it was helpful, I’m going to get one of those flat shovels!!

    Reply

  38. Monta says

    Hey to all the gardeners living in the south. Clay soil is the worst. My favorite tool is my 4 inch trenching spade. Its a Kobalt , orange in color do I don’t leave it outside. This is what I use in place of a regular shovel. It’s ergonomically correct and great for short people like me. Keep it sharp and you will wonder what you ever did without it.

    Reply

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