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Planning Your Garden
Stone Edgings — In districts where stone is plentiful and cheap, it may be used as an edging, and it has the advantage of being obtainable in long lengths. It may also be worked in any section desired, or we may use it roughly dressed. The illustration on page 234 indicates some simple and suitable sections.
Sometimes the gardener is in a position to buy cheaply old stone paving, which may be adapted as an edging with good effect.
Slate has been suggested for edgings, and in districts where it is cheap, if used in pieces at least one inch thick, it is durable and efficient; but its color is unpleasing, and I cannot commend it for the flower garden on that account. For the vegetable ground it is quite admirable.
The least expensive kind of edging is the common flint, and on the score of appearance and stability it leaves little to be desired. It should be bedded deeply, and the flints should be large ones. The practice common in some districts of whitening flint edgings gives them too much prominence, and on that account I do not favor it.
When a bed or border is to be raised above the general level the edging may be built up of flints or brickbats.
There is no special virtue in the flint, apart from its abundance and ubiquity. In districts where other natural stone is common it may be used in rough pieces in the same way as flints, with equally good effect.
Wood Edgings — The last form of artificial edging that I shall notice is the board edging. It has its usefulness as a temporary expedient when we wish to make our gravel paths before we lay the permanent edging, and it is sometimes used in kitchen gardens. Its appearance is never good, and the presence of wood in the soil is at all times to be condemned, because it encourages the growth of fungous life.
Unprepared wood is hardly good for more than two seasons. If required to last longer it must be dressed with a tar solution or creosoted.
