Stopping runner grass / weeds with edging

[Mr_Yan]

I have my veg garden surrounded by a rabbit inhibiting mesh fence with mulch on one side and grassy lawn on the other. On the grassy side there are some runner type grasses and some common yarrow which are sending stolon runners into the mulched side of the fence and growing in my mulch.

I don't know what type of grass it is. I called it crab grass but it is a perennial sending out these stolons. I think I am too far north for Bermuda grass - we average 80 inches of snow a season but we don't get too cold. Pulling the grass I get a clump with runners going out of it, and I've carefully pulled continuous runners out almost a meter long with multiple tufts of grass attached to them.

Is there a reasonable barrier edging that I could put down to stop stolon encroachment so once I kill off what is inside my veg garden side I don't have to repeat my work?

Options I can think of:

• I could trench in aluminum trim-coil or flashing which would be seamless but offer a metal edge hazard just above ground level.
• Round top plastic edging. But, I'm not sure if this is deep enough and I have never seen it stay in place.
• Any wooden edging will rot out in a few years.
• Any paver block concrete type would offer an open seam roughly every 16 inches.

This is largely a repeat of this
this thread

 

[cntrlwagdnr]

Be careful with flashing strips. Some of it is zinc.

 

[Mr_Yan]

When digging I saw that most of the runner roots were in the top 100 mm or so and I was trying to move fast so I went with the typical plastic round top edging. I screwed that to the posts (about every 5') with a pan head lath screw then back filled the trench. I hope the screws hold it in place and keep it from lifting out like this junk always does.

This is at the base of a rabbit inhibiting fence.

 

[Susan BBPM]

I have my veg garden surrounded by a rabbit inhibiting mesh fence with mulch on one side and grassy lawn on the other. On the grassy side there are some runner type grasses and some common yarrow which are sending stolon runners into the mulched side of the fence and growing in my mulch.

I don't know what type of grass it is. I called it crab grass but it is a perennial sending out these stolons. I think I am too far north for Bermuda grass - we average 80 inches of snow a season but we don't get too cold. Pulling the grass I get a clump with runners going out of it, and I've carefully pulled continuous runners out almost a meter long with multiple tufts of grass attached to them.

Is there a reasonable barrier edging that I could put down to stop stolon encroachment so once I kill off what is inside my veg garden side I don't have to repeat my work?

Options I can think of:

• I could trench in aluminum trim-coil or flashing which would be seamless but offer a metal edge hazard just above ground level.
• Round top plastic edging. But, I'm not sure if this is deep enough and I have never seen it stay in place.
• Any wooden edging will rot out in a few years.
• Any paver block concrete type would offer an open seam roughly every 16 inches.

This is largely a repeat of this
this thread

We had a similar problem - impossible to mow or strim the grass when it starts to grow under the wire fence.

Our solution was to put grass clippings over a 6 inch border that started just on the inside of the fence and a few inches out onto the lawn. It creates a barrier that smothers anything and provided you top it up fairly regularly with grass clippings nothing will grow. In time it will turn into good soil and I might plant clover along it - I don't mind that creeping into my beds and you can just mow over it when you cut the grass.

Another alternative I've heard of is to put a border of wood ash down - that makes the soil so alkaline that nothing will grow. But I'm on a slope so was afraid it would seep into my veg beds.

 

[Meadowlark]

I prefer repurposing natural stuff. I use cypress limbs, old posts, and cedar. If large enough, all you have to do is lay it in place and forget it. No work, no maintenance, no chemicals and no runners go under it (but may try to go over it).

Works for me!

 

[Oliver Buckle]

That looks like an old Ali Baba laundry basket with the top few rings of plait taken off so it doesn't narrow down. I used to have one of those for taking swarms of bees in. Knock the swarm off the branch or whatever into the basket and then turn it upside down on a spread out double bed sheet. The cut end of the plait makes a nice little entrance for them and come evening you just fold the sheet over the top, tie it up, and pop it in the back of the car. I always hoped some nosey cop would stop me on the way home, "No, you can't open that!" "I'll decide what I open sunshine.". I used to spend half my life driving about with bees in various containers, but it never happened
Probably not the best, but I use boards from split up pallets with a bit of wide timber hammered into the ground each side at the joints, but I don't have any really invasive cooch types of grass to contend with. They do rot eventually, but they are free and make reasonable firewood, some are really good hardwood.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Metal under attached to wood over? Or stones? Personally I like mortared edging.