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Boarders ... To boarder or not to boarder

Because of the shovel I chose for a graphic some of you may be scratchin' your heads...yes, you are in the right place if you want to see what I have to suggest as a boarder for garden beds.

My husband and I have used and/or looked at every kind of edging imaginable. There are sooooo many plastic edgings...even ones that look like brick, stone, wood and even metal. These edgings are expensive to use if you have more than one small flower bed. For our beds covering about a half an acre they were definitely NOT in the budget.

About two years ago I was watching a program on Home and Garden Television and the "gardener guy", as he refers to himself, taught how he boarders ALL the flower and vegetable beds in his acre yard. It was an "aha!" moment for me and I knew it was the solution to my problem. I love curved flower beds and this was THE answer. I have shared this with many other people and have seen the same "aha!" moment for them as I spoke.

TRENCHING....

(Now to explain this with only words is going to be a challenge .....if you have any questions just send me a note at SharonM@titus2menandwomen.org)

If I cannot 'eyeball' what I want my flower bed to look like, I take flour from my kitchen and use it to draw the pattern for the shape of the bed on the grass.

After you decide on the shape for your flower or vegetable bed:

• Take your shovel and make about 6" deep cuts along that outline of flour.
• If you can stand inside of the bed do the same thing with the shovel back cutting it to the first cut....making a trench. If you cannot stand inside of the bed without tromping on your plants you can use a hoe to make the trench...hoeing toward the first shovel cut.
  If you aren't hesitant about using weed killers you can then carefully spray the trench to prevent weeds and grass from growing back. I prefer to just hoe out the trenches about once a month. Not much grows back once the sod and weeds are removed in the initial process.
• Trenching looks nice and my husband tells me it is much easier to mow the grass when the beds don't have edging. Also, trenching does not require that I get down on my hands and knees to pull the weeds around edgings. I hope this helps some of you as much as it has helped me to solve a major problem in my yard.
  
  

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