I agree with hogweed and others too. Edging this will need a lot of maintenance. Most probably the problem will be grass getting to your border, not the other way around. You would need to work on it every week to keep it constantly looking good.
You can have a narrow border but if you want it to be maintenance free, I would add some kind of edging or mowing strip between the grass and the border. Personally, I would do 10x5cm timber boards (lying flat) or maybe 10x10cm posts. It would keep it narrow and it would make the mowing easier.
Then you can treat it as a built-in trough. You could do a low flowering hedge, using one plant only or maybe repeating two or three plants. It could have some spill to both sides, hiding the mowing strip partially and growing over the edge of the wall in some places. Hardy geraniums could look good. You could also consider some low growing evergreens like smaller types of lavender, winter-flowering heathers or dwarf hebes alternated with mound-forming flowering perennials (summer) and bulbs (spring) for year-round interest.
I don't mind the added maintenance... The rest of our garden is a big paddock/meadow on a big scale so I deliberately set out to have one small, higher effort area next to the house.
Thanks for the idea about wooden strips. I've seen that work well before. I expect to be edging this lawn quite often to keep sharp edges but no reason not to save some effort on the side which is dead straight.
Funnily enough, I have a ft wide border along a wall, it’s a pain the arse and we’ve just decided to grass it over, grass grows in it, and weeds, it’s not as easy to maintain as the big borders. there are a lot of daffs right along, they will come up through the grass, at the moment it’s full of sweet Williams that come up every year, we will cut the losses and pull the out. I have some lovely small geraniums, they stay in a clump and don’t spread all over the place, white ones, they would look nice alternating with dark red Heuchera.
Rozanne grows huge in a season and is very untidy, so far mine’s about 3ft tall and will go on growing for a bit longer, but the small compact ones would be nice, just cut back after they’ve flowered and they’ll grow new fresh growth in no time.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
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Thanks for the idea about wooden strips. I've seen that work well before. I expect to be edging this lawn quite often to keep sharp edges but no reason not to save some effort on the side which is dead straight.
there are a lot of daffs right along, they will come up through the grass, at the moment it’s full of sweet Williams that come up every year, we will cut the losses and pull the out.
I have some lovely small geraniums, they stay in a clump and don’t spread all over the place, white ones, they would look nice alternating with dark red Heuchera.
Rozanne grows huge in a season and is very untidy, so far mine’s about 3ft tall and will go on growing for a bit longer, but the small compact ones would be nice, just cut back after they’ve flowered and they’ll grow new fresh growth in no time.