Enter border plants for landscaping edges. Position these alongside edging materials to soften the look, or use lower-growing plants on their own to outline different areas of your garden. As the frontline of your flowerbeds, edging plants need to look good no matter the season or the growing conditions, unfurling new flowers and foliage from spring to fall. Bonus points go to colorful border plants that enhance the winter landscape as well.
How to Use Border Plants
The best plants for edging your landscape catch your eye and lead it forward—for example, calling attention to a garden path to help direct foot traffic. Placing colorful border plants around a flower bed also adds visual excitement, while clearly defining the planting space from other nearby features. Consider a uniform look to maintain a more orderly aesthetic: Edging your beds with just one type of plant—for example, one of many evergreen edging plants, like blue star juniper or creeping juniper—provides a consistent frame for the seasonally changing inner parts of the garden.
Evaluate Your Light Level
Before you pick your edging plants, assess the amount of sunlight your space gets. If the sun shines directly for eight or more hours a day, full-sun plants will perform best. But if the bed is shaded enough that it gets less than eight hours of direct sunlight a day, choose plants that prefer growing in shade or part shade. Refer to our lists below to find the best picks for your landscape.
