Lawn Edging Ideas That'll Take Your Small Backyard To The Next Level

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If you are looking to make your small yard appear bigger, you should employ landscaping tricks such as breaking up the space, utilizing gardens and beds, blurring the boundaries between transitions, and creating focal points. When it comes to accomplishing these tasks, the right lawn edging can make all the difference. That means not just utilizing the right material, but also using it in ways that creates the illusion of space. While this may sound intimidating to some, there are a variety of simple ways to accomplish this that even novice gardeners can easily handle. Making good use of edging can also simplify your lawn maintenance and add serious value to your home.

Before you begin buying edging and plopping it in your small backyard, it is best to know what options are out there and the various ways to incorporate them into your outdoor living space. There are a number of both natural and artificial hard edge options. Plastic, concrete, rubber, and metal are commonly used, as are natural stones such as slate, granite, flagstone, and gravel. There are also ways to incorporate various plants, flowers, and bushes into lawn designs as edgers. You can even use some creativity and repurpose objects like wine bottles as garden edging. The key is choosing the materials that fit your style and can be utilized in the ways you intend. 

Edging is not a stand alone feature. However, it can assist and enhance the effectiveness of the various features you incorporate into your small yard design. For instance, creating a variety of levels is one of the best ways to make your space appear larger. This could be a sunken patio or a raised bed or even a terrace. Brick, stone, and wood edging are all good choices for keeping soil walls in place.

Another good way to make your small yard appear and feel bigger is to create different zones, such as dining and sitting areas or gardens and beds. While chopping small areas into even smaller sections may seem counterproductive, creating distinctly different zones will add depth to your yard. Utilizing curved instead of straight lines to denote these zones will add additional depth. When it comes to edging your curved lawn, you can utilize a variety of materials. Plastic, rubber, and metal edging, like the Land Guard Corrugated Edging Border, are easy to manipulate along winding boundaries. Bricks, stone, and curved concrete may also be used, depending on the curvatures. Mixed plant boundaries are also a good option.

Creating focal points in your yard will also make it seem much larger. Focal points can be created and/or enhanced by your choice of edging. For example, using a unique natural stone wall to edge a terrace or planting a row of uniformly colored flowers along a winding pathway will automatically create a focal point. Utilizing the edging on your different zones is also a way to create a palette of various textures within your yard, further adding to its appeal and spacious appearance.

While the combination of edging materials and ideas for how to use them is nearly infinite, the amount of space in your yard is not. Although a number of ideas and uses may appeal to you, you will likely be limited on how many you can incorporate into your space. Therefore, it is important to plan out your backyard design before attempting to implement it. This not only assures you achieve the effect you're after, but will also help you prepare for the amount of time and money the effort will require.

The first step in the planning process is to do a wide-ranging search for small yard landscaping ideas. Then, measure your space and make note of any issues you may encounter regarding space, drainage, etc. You will also need to decide if you are completely overhauling your yard or working within the confines of keeping certain elements, such as trees, patios, sidewalks, gardens, or beds. If you are keeping some of the elements that already exist in your yard, it is important to decide if you need to make any modifications so they fit into your new design and how those modifications might be achieved.

Once you know the type of elements you want and have made sure they will both fit into your space and work well together, you need to figure out the type and amount of materials you will need. For linear edging, make sure you measure the perimeter it will be covering. In other words, don't use a straight-line length measurement to estimate what you need for a curved bed. If edging raised beds, terraces, and other multi-level features, you will also need to factor in the height. For plants, consider the distance that is recommended between plants.