Garden Pictures Pictures by all members (25418 photos)

Yes - looks fine. Have you got any ideas for plants at the front of the border which tend to flop onto the grass? It drives my husband mad because he drives the mower (LOL) and then he runs over the floppy stems! (CRIES).

Hi Spritzhenry - we've actually found the semi-circular ones that you bought to be best for for stopping plants flopping onto the grass and, of course, you can vary the height as required. They are expensive normally, but we got a lot at the Gardening Scotland show last year for much less - if you go to any shows in your area it might be worth keeping an eye out.

Wellllllll. Now I shall have a problem - I can see that they would work, BUT the border in question is about 20' long I think. This is only one of several borders in our large garden. There are more. It's wonderful having a very large garden, but it does have its downside - my credit card, which is NOT a flexible friend - LOL. The AG Gardening Show is not until end August / beginning of September. Obviously I need them before then - will have to go and cut some more twiggy bits!

My guess is that twigs would work equally well - just a bit more work, and less long-lived.
One of the reasons we put hard paths next to our borders/beds is that we would like the plants to flop over eventually and create a soft edge - but I can see why that would be a problem with a lawn. I bet willow or hazel could be bent in a way to create low level inobtrusive and inexpensive supports to keep plants of the lawn - we're growing some hazel that we would like to coppice eventually for that very reason, but that's a few years away - so I can only speak from speculation rather than experience. I agree about the cost of manufactured supports - even in a small garden like ours it is amazing how much support might be required and we certainly couldn't afford to be buying all the supports you see for sale - great looking though they are. Even just sticking some twigs of about a foot or two in height with various little branches can be very effective at holding things back or in the place you want them to be. Another good thing is that they still look ok while you are waiting for the plants to grow into them - whereas the manufactured supports are always going to look manufactured during that period.