Edgy moment

I've been playing with different ways to create borders in the garden that will define the pathways better. Rocks are, annoyingly enough, fairly abundant, but not big enough to build into low walls. Mounds of mulch are quickly flattened and those landscaping timbers are annoyingly red and straight.

Leah suggested using branches. On the way to work I asked the guys who were pruning the ornamental pears outside our house to leave me a pile of long, thin branches on the sidewalk. When I got home they had left three HUGE piles of branches right in the garden!

Gary was about, and suggested metal staples to hold the branches in place. He quickly made me a couple to experiment with, but they won't go deep enough to hold securely. Then we thought about twine. It took me about 2 hours to bundle branches together and tie them with twine, creating about 20' of Andy Goldsworthy-inspired natural, unobtrusive, recycled border edging. I'll stake it down when I'm done - I've used about 1/3 of the branches. Should have enough for the two center beds as well, if I drag the plum clippings out of the gully.

When the plants grow bigger they'll cover the (by then decomposing) branches, and there will be no need for edging. You can see from the pics that the edges are about a foot in diameter, and currently go up the right side of the left-hand bed, curling around one of the plum trees at the top.