Hi all,
We bought a house last year and the backyard has artificial turf. We don’t like the wooden edging the previous owners built in so we were thinking of using concrete edgers instead.
Does anyone have experience with that? Anything we need to be cautious of? I hope I don’t need to remove the turf to do this, so curious about your experience.
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There shouldn’t be much to be done other than setting in the edgers in the space left from removing the wood, although honestly I think it looks fine as-is. But I am biased towards wood and stone over concrete.
On that note, the $3+ dollars per edger is painful to see. That adds up quick. Might I suggest something like quarry spalls as an alternative option? I don’t know if the idea would suit your tastes but if you have a large area to cover it might suit your budget. But like I said: biased.
, so that’s why I’m thinking of replacing them.I need to replace roughly 83 feet of wooden edgers which will cost around $200 for the concrete edgers.
Quarry spalls are stones in the shape of a brick? This would definitely be a good option but that’s not as aesthetically appealing to us as these red concrete ones.
Quarry spalls are much more irregular than bricks, so it’d be a much rougher edge. Sounds like the edgers are the desired product, so by all means that’s what mattera.
For the concrete edgers I’d just lay an inch or two of sand and tamp it down firm. A tamped sand foundation is much easier to set and keep level than your average soils, and better for drainage and seasonal shifts (freezing). You’ll be having to keep 80 concrete edgers straight and even instead of maybe 10 wood boards.
Great advice, will follow that, thanks a lot!
I way prefer the wood for what it’s worth. I love weathered wood - it ages beautifully, lasts for years and years, and the environmental impact of cedar (assuming that’s what it is) is far lower than concrete too.
Concrete is the plastic of things that aren’t plastic. Produced mostly with fossil fuels, huge GHG associated with production, and will sit as a lump of trash forever-ish once the next person decides they prefer a different look.
Make your own decisions obviously - I’m aware that I’m particularly carbon footprint averse.
Wood takes a lot of up keep ( staining, fixing lose boards every so often)and invites termites. I agree, I love the wood as well. However it’s important to be mindful of up keep
Thanks, appreciate that. I would generally agree with you. The experience I’ve had so far with the wood is that it started to rot below the surface. That’s why I’m pivoting away from using it again.
To be fair, it doesn’t look like as if they’ve cared much for the wooden edgers. Do you have a suggestion as to how to take care of it in this particular use case?
Do some research on setting them. You may need to roll the turf back and dig down further. Setting them on tamped sand may also help keep them straight as they go through freeze/thaw cycles. Of course that means more digging.
Let me know when you’ve figured it out - I’m considering a similar project.
Thanks for the advice, I live on the California coast, so weather is never below 45 degrees. What would you suggest in this scenario, assuming tamper sand is a good option for colder climates?
I don’t see why you’d have to pull up the turf unless you want to dig underneath it. Assuming the boards come up easily, the concrete edgers you linked look to be about the same thickness, so you could probably just pick up the board and put in the edger.
Thanks, that what I thought as well. Would you add an extra layer of gravel or sand between soil and the edger?
You might need to add sand to level it all out. If you do this, make sure you get masonry sand and not just regular playground sand (although that will work in a pinch too). Just depends on what shakes out under the wood when you pop it up. The wood might be rebar-ed into the ground too, in that case you’ll have to pop it up with a crowbar. That’s what’s nice about wood, is it’s malleable and simple to level out. You might be getting yourself into quite a project with the concrete, depends on what you observe/how fussy you are.
Not necessary in this situation
Start pulling one out and see if it’s connected anywhere. I really doubt it will be.
Thanks! That’s correct, it’s not connected at all to the turf, only nailed to the next plank.
Should I put anything underneath the concrete edgers apart from soil? Gravel maybe?
I live on the California coast, so I won’t be experiencing cold winters, or snow for that matter.