Steel Tree Rings and steel edging - Pros and Cons
I am about to plant an apple tree as well as redo my lawn and borders.
In my Googling I came across steel tree rings and edging. To me they look quite neat.
Has anyone used these? What are the pros / cons?
I'm thinking steel rather than the cheaper plastic ones - as I can imagine the plastic would break after 2 or 3 years.
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It looks neat now but is it rust proof, it looks as if it is joined with pop rivets so could be a bit flimsy and not last as long as a decent thick plastic one.
Once the ring is installed there is no particular stress on it, so I think the plastic would probably last fairly well. My concern with the steel would be if you had young children who might fall, as it could make for a sharp landing.
As for appearance, think it depends on your style of garden - mine is definitely cottagey-rural, semi-wild, it would look completely out of place here!
Yes - good point about children falling on it.
Mine is fully wild at the moment! As in overgrown and untended for the last 15 years. I am redoing it all, but want to keep a more natural cottagey feel. Not really into minimalistic perfectly neat layouts, so perhaps this would look too formal.
However, for the garden edging I think I will use something because it helps stop it creeping into the borders
A sharp edge cut with an edging tool and then a small gutter works fairly well if trimmed from time to time, but for the cottagey look you really need plants spilling out, so a stone mowing edge made with bricks, setts or paviours is better. It helps protect the grass from dying off under the plants at the edges too. I am lucky that I have plenty of natural stone so I use that. I have thin pieces of stone set on edge to separate my lawn from a gravel area. As it is local and naturally occuring it looks at home. Whatever you use, set it low enough that you can mow cleanly over it.
Yes - Thats the look I want. Plants spilling out onto the lawn.
I will go with brick or stone edging then. I'm new to this gardening lark so sometimes don't know what looks right until I try it. But that's expensive! So getting advice here is so so useful.
Do the bricks for edging need to be properly set into concrete?
I had plastic edging until i touched it with the strimmer and it shattered into hundreds of pointy sharp pieces that I had to spend hours picking out of the mud and grass incase the dog cut his paw on it.....no more plastic edging for me.