27 Best Edging Plants For Your Garden

Edging plants like bushes, hedges, and low-growing compact plants provide a well-defined border between garden features. They can create a border between your property and the neighbors, separate your garden from a driveway or sidewalk, or define a border along the edge of your perennial garden.

Growing conditions significantly impact the choice of edging plants. For example, plants like hostas might make a fine edging along a sidewalk in dense shade but will not work in a location that bakes in the hot sun all summer. In regions with icy winters where sidewalks use rock salt to melt ice, the plants that edge those sidewalks must tolerate alkaline or salty soils.

Here's how to choose edging plants that work best for your needs based on your growing conditions, such as soil type and sun exposure.

Edging Plants for Shade

1. Hosta

   Hostas are a long-lived example of a plant with pretty foliage that works along shady walkways, bordering flower beds, or edging groupings of perennial plants. Hostas come with variegated leaves and in different shades, like blue-ish-tinged halcyon hosta. Showcase these shade lovers under tree-covered areas.
   

2. Begonia

   Begonias prefer a shady or partially shaded area but can grow in different soils and climate conditions. Their flowers come in pink, red, white, yellow, and orange shades, making them a versatile garden border option.

3. Ferns

   Ferns are shady, water-loving plants that thrive in moist environments protected under tree cover. They prefer growing near a water source like a woodland lake, pond, or stream. Consider using ferns if you have a shady, wooded pathway near a water feature.
   

4. Impatiens

   Continuously blooming from spring to fall, impatiens are usually grown as easy-to-maintain annual border plants. They reliably withstand summer heat when given ample water and partial shade. Flowers span the gamut, including white, red, pink, orange, purple, and yellow.

5. Lenten Rose

   Lenten roses bloom in late winter or early spring, and they are usually among the first blooming plants. This evergreen usually ends its bloom by April, but the foliage remains beautiful throughout the year when grown in a shady spot. Consider using this plant as edging along a tree-covered path.

6. Virginia Bluebells

   Virginia bluebells are ephemeral plants with blue, tiny, trumpet-looking flowers. They grow best under the shade of a tree, getting about two feet tall and wide. The plant has rounded, smooth leaves, tinged gray-green to blue-green.
   

Edging Plants for Full Sun

1. Daylily

   Daylily are so named because their beautiful trumpet-shaped blooms only last about 24 hours; however, the strappy foliage of these easy-to-grow perennials makes them ideal for borders and edging. They thrive in full sun, tolerate drought, handle high temperatures well, and can grow in most soils. They bloom in spring and summer. Plant many varieties for a range of colors from yellow to red.
   

2. Lavender

   Lavender is a fragrant perennial plant that returns yearly with gray-green foliage, upright flower spikes, and a compact shrub form. It requires full sun to form a nice, purple-hued and fragrant hedge for garden edging. 

3. Creeping Phlox

   Creeping phlox is commonly used in rock gardens, as groundcover, borders for landscaping or along walkways, and in the crevices of stone walls. It blooms in the late spring to summer with clusters of fragrant, purple, pink, or white five-petal flowers.
   

4. Moss Rose

   Moss rose plants are flowering annuals commonly used in container gardens, along the front edge of garden bed borders, and as edging along paved walkways. As a groundcover, they don't spread fast outside bounds, so they're ideal for small gardens. 

5. Creeping Juniper

   Creeping juniper is a low-growing evergreen shrub that can be used as a groundcover. It thrives in full sun and hot summers. It isn't too picky about its soil type, isn't bothered by many pests or diseases, and is unlikely to be eaten by deer or rabbits. This is a good shrub for growing along the edge of a retaining wall or adding color to a rock garden or xeriscape.

6. Marigold

   Marigolds are flowering annuals that provide bold, in-your-face color from spring to the first frost. The short varieties function well as border plants, although their bright orange and golden colors can clash if you're not careful about the surrounding color palette.
   

7. Zinnia

   Zinnia plants are annuals that develop rounded dahlia-like flowers in a blush of colors, including pink, purple, yellow, orange, white, red, and green. They handle heat and sun like champs; the sunnier, the better, for more blooms. They require minimal care and work well as a border plant, creating a colorful edge around a garden bed or flourishing in windowbox containers.

Edging Plants for Salty Soils

1. Silver Mound Artemisia

   'Silver Mound' is a mounding artemisia cultivar with attractive lacy silver foliage often used as an edging plant. Its unique features include its tolerance of hotter temperatures than most other artemisia varieties and its lack of invasiveness compared to some of its relatives. It's also salt tolerant.

2. Coleus

   Beloved for its beautifully colored leaves, coleus comes in purples, pinks, yellows, greens, and variegation and mottling of those colors. It bears insignificant floral spikes, but it's best favored for foliage. This plant prefers partial sun but can grow in shade or full sun. It's forgiving regarding soil quality and can withstand soil with a salty mix.

3. Sedum (Stonecrop)

   Sedum or Angelina stonecrop are a group of plants that can tolerate various conditions, including heat, drought, sandy, and salty soil. These plants hold up throughout the growing season, working well in mass plantings, edgings, groundcovers, and container gardens.

4. Ice Plant

   Ice plants are full-sun plants that depend on the sun to entice their light-sensitive flower disks to open. This unique plant can spread as a groundcover, decorate rock gardens, or act as a border or edging plant. It tolerates sandy, salty terrain and, despite its name, is not tolerant of frost. It's hardy down to USDA zone 6.
   

Edging Plants for Alkaline Soils

1. Dianthus

   Smaller varieties of dianthus provide a petite but colorful display alongside the edging of plants. Dianthus has a pleasant, clove-like fragrance that attracts butterflies and pollinators. It has a mounding shape and long bloom time, although it fades during the high heat of summer. This plant prefers slightly alkaline soils, so if your soil pH dips below 7.0, correct the acidity with an application of dolomitic limestone.

2. Scabiosa

   Scabiosa or pincushion flowers work as border plants primarily because of their mounding habit. When in bloom, the plant develops many long flower stems—20 to 50—emerging from the mound, resembling a pincushion filled with pins on each stem. This plant prefers slightly alkaline soil up to pH 8.0.

3. Thyme

   Thyme is an ornamental and culinary herb with small, pretty purple flowers. It comes in many varieties, including creeping thyme, commonly a groundcover. It's fragrant and often used to line steps or between pavers on patios or terraces. When crushed, the flowers and leaves have a fresh herbal scent. Plant this deer-resistant groundcover in full sun to partial shade.

4. Boxwood

   Boxwood is a classic choice for hedges and privacy screens. It is often found outlining garden beds, lining walks and driveways, and marking property lines. This evergreen shrub prefers slightly more alkaline soil than acidic (6.8-7.5), although neutral pH soil works perfectly well for this plant.

5. Aubrieta

   Creeping phlox and aubrieta are often confused for each other with similar pink, purple, and white flowers. Both plants grow as a creeping mat, spreading across the border's edge or trailing down walls. Aubrieta is a tough plant, although it is not as heat—and drought-tolerant as creeping phlox and prefers more alkaline soil than neutral or acidic. Aubrieta is rarely bothered by insect pests and is considered deer-resistant.

Edging Plants for Acidic Soils

1. Rhododendron

   When looking for medium-sized flowering shrubs for borders that thrive in acidic soil, rhododendrons will delight with their bright purple and pink flowers. These plants require shade protection, at least from the harsh afternoon sun.
   

2. Coral Bells

   Coral bells have tiny bell-shaped pink flowers in late spring and early summer, hence their common name. But its foliage is the true star of the garden, with dark purple leaves and caramel-colored leaves playing as a color accent with other plants. They prefer a slightly acidic pH and moist soil amended with leaf or pine bark compost. 

3. Liriope

   At first glance, if you didn't know better, you'd think liriope was an ornamental grass. It's often mistaken for mondo grass. But this herbaceous perennial packs a punch with its mounds of long leaves and lavender-looking floral sprays in summer and early fall. It works beautifully as an edging plant, preferring acidic soil from pH 6.0 to 7.0.

4. Lupine

   Lupine or bluebonnets grow best in slightly acidic soil between pH 6.0 and 6.5; however, their tolerance for acidity can go as low as 4.0. These full-sun lovers develop flowers in spring and summer in various colors, including white, pink, red, yellow, blue, and purple. These eye-catching plants make for a beautiful standout border.

5. Hydrangea

   Hydrangeas are flowering shrubs that work well as hedges or lining paths and driveways. They prefer partial shade and soil pH from 6.0 to 6.2; otherwise, they may develop problems absorbing nutrients from the soil. Depending on the type, these plants range in size from 2 feet to 20 feet, allowing landscaping flexibility in making them a standalone edge plant or a backdrop layered with other edging plants. Flower options also range from pink, blue, purple, and white.
   

Key Questions to Ask When Choosing Edging Plants

Choosing the right edging plants can be tricky, but an excellent place to start is with some key questions: 

1. What is the purpose and usage of the space you are edging? Some plants are best for merely defining visual borders, while others can offer a literal physical barrier. For example, if you have a frequently used stone path, soften the hard, cold lines with short edging plants, perhaps something with leaves and flowers close to the ground to soften the hardscape feature. Also, remember to choose plants that will not outgrow or interfere with its function as a walkway by leaving a mess of berries along the path.
2. What are the conditions of the location? Ensure you choose plants that will thrive in the location's conditions—consider sun exposure, soil pH or texture, proximity to the road (salt) or sea, and moisture levels.
3. Do you have broader landscape design goals or a scheme in mind? If you have a particular color scheme or prefer a low-maintenance landscape, that will impact plant selection.

Consider Landscape Design Goals

The same design elements that apply to the overall landscape should also be considered when choosing edging plants to fit into your own yard. Things to consider include:

• Overall color scheme
• Blooming season
• Texture
• Form, scale, and line
• Proportion
• Harmony
• Flow and rhythm
• Ease of maintenance