Bed Edging for a Pretty Plot

With all this gorgeous spring weather going on, we took the baby out for his first family day trip over the weekend. The day handily doubled up as inspiration for prettying up the vegetable garden.

We visited the beautiful walled garden at Attingham Park, which is being gradually restored to its former glory. With an extended veggie garden on the cards here at Oak House this year, I was particularly interested in how they've structured the garden - how the paths and trellises have been made and how the beds have been edged.

One thing that caught my eye was how they've created a lot of interest simply by varying the edging technique. In some places they'd used a row of box or chives, in others lavender...

Thyme...

And rather strikingly along one pathway they'd used a simple border of little hazel arches. I couldn't wait to get home and give this one a go!

I've got a particularly straggly end bed that is the first thing you see when looking towards the veg garden from our lawn. Not a pretty site!

But half an hour later, I've cut down some thin hazel poles, have cut in a nice neat edge to the bed itself and have installed my very own hazel arch border. Very nice!

Now I just need to get some thyme seedlings on the go so I can add a bit of variety to make it look even prettier, just like they did at Attingham. Do you know of  any other edging plants or techniques that I could be trying out?