Latest project at the new house: we are making a walking path around the perimeter of 5.37 acres.

We already did a rough scraping of the path with a Bobcat. It is ~ 1/3 mile in length, therefore we'd need ~2/3 mile of edging. The path will be covered with road base, crusher fine, or similar. I just want the edging to help keep the surface material in place. It does not need to be decorative AT ALL.

The typical home improvement stores have plastic edging in 40-60 foot lengths at about .50/ft. The total linear footage of 2/3 mile is 3520.

Anyone else have any other ideas? I've used things like this before, but never needed this much. I figured there may be places to order plastic edging in bulk, but thought that there may be other ideas. Laying larger rock for the border is too much labor for this distance.

Contact a landscape company in your area, if anyone is buying in bulk they are, maybe even have them install it for you...

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Originally posted by HRK:
Contact a landscape company in your area, if anyone is buying in bulk they are, maybe even have them install it for you...

Tried 2 so far. They only use metal edging. I thought that odd that they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) get plastic.

Could you scrape troughs into the ground with the Bobcat on either side of the path? A roughly 6" semi-circle?

Side note, a friend of mine has an old house with elaborate gardens. All gardens are surrounded by 1/4 x 4" copper edging from the 40s.

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Tried 2 so far. They only use metal edging

Interesting, did they happen to mention why?

The US Park Service in the DC area uses a coated heavy gauge steel edging for this purpose. From web searches, it looks like it might be the COL-MET brand, but I have no way of knowing for sure. It does a very nice job of delaying weed intrusion, and base erosion, and looks good for an extended period, but is on the expensive side. Retail price looks to be about $13 per 8' section, about $16K for your application, but I'm sure it would be less when bought in quantity.

You may also want to factor in the cost of a trencher rental for installing. It doesn't go in easily with just a sledge.

Plastic degrades in less than five years due to UV exposure, and is also very susceptible to mower damage. The metal can be mowed over without it being pulled out of the ground.

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Originally posted by HRK:

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Tried 2 so far. They only use metal edging

Interesting, did they happen to mention why?

No. I’m guessing because metal is the most robust. It’s more of a PIA to install, though.

6" (or bigger) rip-rap? The gravel company will bring them both.

Now I'm not saying it won't be work to place them, but so will any other edging.

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Originally posted by vinnybass:
6" (or bigger) rip-rap? The gravel company will bring them both.

Now I'm not saying it won't be work to place them, but so will any other edging.

I have a hard time believing that laying at least 40ft of plastic edging per shot is just as much work as a sufficient amount of larger rocks. That is a huge weight difference.

Yeah, it's work, no doubt. I have edged some of the perimeter with native rock up at my cabin. The one saving grace is that once they're dumped at the location I mostly just moved them into place with my foot.

Landscapers around here would do the rock.

I would totally use native rock if I had any in the yard. That would take a lot of that hauling out of the equation. The land is very soft and dusty. We dug down 8-10 feet to backfill for the slab and didn’t hit a single rock.

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Originally posted by Rev. A. J. Forsyth:
Could you scrape troughs into the ground with the Bobcat on either side of the path? A roughly 6" semi-circle?

Side note, a friend of mine has an old house with elaborate gardens. All gardens are surrounded by 1/4 x 4" copper edging from the 40s.

I’m not quite following. That would make the fill material a bit deeper along the edges. What would that do?

Also just found out why none of the landscape suppliers carry plastic; apparently it doesn’t weather well under that NM sun. They almost exclusively use metal edging.

However, one of them gave me a lead on some redwood strip edging. 160ft for $96. That’s still cheaper than metal and only a hair more than plastic. I’ll look into it.

They make a mini edge trencher just for this. Some rental places will have them. They look like a huge floor jack and dig a triangle shape about 3" down in the dirt. This creates a contour you can put mulch or other material on without it constant coming over on grass. I've used it in new shopping centers that had islands with trees plus an apartment complex.

Sitting here wondering what a shitload of used railroad ties would cost... Or maybe a bunch of just plain raw timber, logs basically, would cost?

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Also just found out why none of the landscape suppliers carry plastic; apparently it doesn’t weather well under that NM sun.

Looks like Architect nailed the reason early on, we use the plastic in some areas here in FL, mostly in the shade, the stuff we put in the direct sun didn't weather well...

Man, going that distance I’d consider using water and a grader and building up chokers on either side, then putting your material in with no edge other than the compacted chokers. We’ve done this with miles of roads made with asphalt grindings and executed well it gives a nice straight edge.

I’m thinking a tractor mounted narrow sprayer for Roundup and a cooler for monthly beer.

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Originally posted by HRK:

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Also just found out why none of the landscape suppliers carry plastic; apparently it doesn’t weather well under that NM sun.

Looks like Architect nailed the reason early on, we use the plastic in some areas here in FL, mostly in the shade, the stuff we put in the direct sun didn't weather well...

Whoops. Missed that line.

The metal is waaay over the price I’d like to pay. Building up edges with the existing surface material just won’t work. Without plants, it’s the consistency of moon dust.

The edge trenchers are neat, but since I already scraped the entire path with a Bobcat below ground level, I’m not seeing a reason. After a bit of tidying with a rake/shovel, the path should be ready for the edging and then the fill.

RR ties would be amazing, but they are around $18 each and weigh a ton. I lined my last driveway and built a retaining wall out of them.

I’ve seen many folks out here building small walls or fences with 2-3” ‘logs’ (young pines, I think). I’ll see what those may cost per foot.

I also just called a local lumber yard who had redwood strip edging. $96 for ten 16” pieces. That comes to 0.60/ft. Not bad. That’s only a hair more than the plastic anyway.

Landscape timbers would be pretty cost effective. Even buying retail at Home Depot you're looking at $0.50 per foot plus $0.68 per spike every 4'-0".

3520 x .5 = $1760
3520/4 = 880 x .68 = $598
Total = $2358

Plastic edging never ages well. Hot and cold cycles expand and contract the plastic and push it up over time. You'll be chasing after it constantly. Lot's of other great suggestions in this thread, I'd buy once cry once on this one for sure.