Landscaping Using Slab Borders-- Ideas

Mowing Edge

• Slab borders add neatness to your landscape, keeping the grass out of your plantings and the mulch and soil in your beds. Install a mower’s edge. This style of border has a high and low level. Run your mower wheels along the lower side of the curbing, ensuring a cut that will minimize the need for lawn edging.

Stable Edging

• Landscape slab borders can be laid out as separate pieces that abut each other to form a continuous border, or the individual pieces can be mortared together to keep them from shifting due to erosion or movement by a mower or wheelbarrow. Slab borders can be purchased in colors that include gray, white and brick red. They can be stamped to mimic the look of textured stone and brick or molded to look like stone.

Pond Edging

• Use a concrete slab border to hold down a pond liner and camouflage its edges. Use a border that mimics stone and let the border hang 1- to 2-inches over the water’s edge for a natural appearance.

Scree

• Build your own scree--a prominent outcropping that simulates the look of a pile of stone at the bottom of a cliff. On an incline, stack pieces of slab border on top of each other in a random fashion. Use little or no plant material to complete the look.

Scale

• When deciding on width and heft of your slab borders consider the size of your landscape. Despite the size you think is appropriate for the area, think a little larger to get the optimal effect. Take care that plants do not minimize the look of your slab border. Plant dwarf varieties inside the border where they won't cover it up. Be sure to position your slab border high enough to stand out, but low enough for your plantings to spill over them.