Adding Edging Services

If you're considering adding bed edging to your service mix, consider these cost and installation guidelines when investigating what materials to offer.
 
Metal and plastic edging products serve as functional rather than decorative additions to landscapes. For both types, installation requires the edging material, a shovel and a hammer. Typically, the product is installed 1/2 inch to 1 inch above grade into a trench created with the spade and reinforced with stakes.
 

The main problem with these materials in many regions is the freeze-thaw cycle,says Chris Timp, owner of Timp Landscaping, Galena, Ill. While they’re intended to be long-term solutions, extreme weather conditions can cause them to move over time.

“You have to touch them up quite a bit,” he sayings, adding they may have to be completely replaced every five or six years. But plastic and metal options are more cost effective than their decorative stone or concrete counterparts. Plastic edging ranges from about 40 cents to $3 per linear foot; metal edging also falls in that range, hovering around $1 to $1.25 per linear foot.
 
Decorative edging selections include concrete curbing and natural stone borders. Concrete curbing, which ranges in price from about $4 to $7 per foot, can be a business venture in itself. It requires its own machine that extrudes and shapes the concrete. Many manufacturers sell as part of a turn-key package (including training, marketing materials and other tools), which can cost tens of thousands of dollars. A curbing machine alone is about $5,000 or less, or typically can be rented for $200 or less per day.

 
Installing natural stone borders generally doesn’t require any specialized equipment, but costs vary widely depending on what materials are available regionally.

“The stone itself is priced by the ton from your supplier,” Timp says. In Texas, chopped Austin stone can run $150 per ton; In Colorado, Mountain Ledgestone can run $375 per ton.