Give Mulched Garden Bed Edging A Rustic Touch With A DIY That Uses River Rocks

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As a gardener, you probably already know the benefits of adding mulch to all of your garden beds. You might even have embraced some genius mulching tips while giving your garden a makeover, like using the right type and reapplying when needed. But if you have a mulched garden bed that is adjacent to a path or next to your driveway, and you want a fun project that will give you an attractive rustic edging, why not follow TikToker Thorns and Whimsy's example and use river rocks? This type of edging should help to keep the mulch in place, and looks rather lovely, especially if you have a collection of multicolored stones.

While you probably won't have river rocks lying around from an abandoned project, as the creator did, you should be able to buy them in bulk at your local landscape supply store for this DIY. Or you could get bags of them from hardware stores such as The Home Depot or Ace Hardware. In a pinch, you could even get them online, like this 40-pound bag of decorative river rocks from Fantian. You just want to keep in mind not to put this type of border edging next to a grassed area, as you'll have no end of trouble keeping the grass from growing through the stones. For a configuration like that, you'll probably want to explore the types of edging that will prevent grass from growing in flower beds, like brick or steel.

You could copy this clever driveway border idea by just placing the individual stones as the video creator has done, or if you have a lot of rocks, it would also look effective if you just pile them up a bit so that they more closely resemble a creek bed. Either way will work, but laying them individually is just going to take you a little more time. You could even add a little sparkle by dropping some gemstone-like beads, like these Stanbroil glass beads, randomly throughout your rock edging.

To circle back to putting this type of border next to a grassed area, one possible workaround is adding at least a double layer of river rocks, with smaller rocks serving as a base layer and larger rocks as the top layer. A layered approach like this could allow you to use this type of rock edging, even if your garden bed is next to a lawn, especially if you cut a nice, clean trench first.

@thornsandwhimsy

I found a bunch of river rocks that we were going to use for an abandoned project and started a little border. I'm a little nervous that they won't stay put, but we shall see. #gardendesign #whimsy #gardenproject #outdoordecor #whimsical

♬ Crystalline Clarity – Ernesto P. Neto

If you're going to lay the rocks in a single layer, be aware that having all those spaces between them will mean that weeds can crop up quite easily, unless you've laid a strip of landscape fabric under the mulch and the stones at the edge of the bed. Even so, this will break down over time, and you will end up with a bit of a weed problem. If you haven't put anything under the rocks, they'll eventually settle into the soil, and you'll have to lift them and redo the edge. You might also find that some may be dislodged by heavy rain, and these will end up on your path. Creating a shallow trench before placing the stones should help with this issue.