Hints, Tips and Specifications on Edging Techniques

It is a long way round even a small pool, and edging it uses up a surprising amount materials. If you are using natural stone or concrete slabs, do your estimating sums so that you can order all the paving at once. Different batches vary considerably in colour.

Stone or concrete slabs needs to be supported with a compacted hardcore/scalping / ballast or concrete footing of a depth of at least 100mm.

Stone edging over-hang. Edging the back of the pool with rockery to make up the difference in soil height.

 

 

 

Consolidate the paving area. Tamping down the soil in the proposed paved area to make a firm surface for the footing.

 

 

 

Foundation down for the paving. A stiff concrete mix, 100mm deep, is laid to make a cohesive footing on the sloping ground.

 

 

Whilst the concrete is ‘going off’, the rest a wildlife escape ladder was constructed.

 

 

 

The ‘crazy paving’ is laid out position to ensure a complete poolside edge and an adequate quantity.

 

 

 

Lay paving and point the slabs with a dry mix. Ensure a slight fall away from the pool.

 

 

Leave pointing to go off.

 

 

Brush out the pointing with a stiff brush as it is just beginning to ‘go off’.

 

 

All finished and a year on.

 

‘Crazy Paving’: lay a continuous line of stone around the pool edge first, followed by the outside edge of the path or edging. ~~Then fill in the middle with the rest of the stone. Place all the stone in position before you start to lay it.

Formal Paving Edge: start laying slabs from each end of the length of a side of the pool, you will only have to cut the central stone, or if there are two central slabs they will only need one cut each.

Lawn grass: this not a desirable edging if only from the maintenance point of view. Apart from that, nitrates and weed killers can leech into the pool and water can easily siphon out through ‘capillary reaction’ in the soil.

Wood: Upright timbers facing the edge of a pool need a concrete footing within the pool in a channel into which the liner dips. Alternatively it will need some purchase and support from a framework set in the bank. Oak and elm are the only suitable woods for use in a pool.

Only exceptionally well-weathered old railway sleepers can be used for edging and only well out of reach of the water. Other pressure treated timber should be treated with the new internationally approved non-toxic chemicals. It may last 10years or more in water.

Stone and pre-cast concrete: There is nothing wrong with concrete slabs or pre-cast stonework as long as it suits, matching or working in harmony with the other materials in the garden and house. The same goes for the genuine article. If however there is no real local stone, then use brick and the traditional utilitarian standbys for all areas of the country like York Stone (or good copies). You cannot go wrong. There is some good looking material coming from India that competes with the better quality pre cast stone and slabs for cost.

MORE Pictures

This pool was constructed with a blockwork skeleton and faced with rockery and building stone on the inside that was capped with crazy paving that linked in with the path.

 

 

Traditional edging in Pennant paving around this pool at the Bristol Botanical Gardens.

 

 

Formal pool in timber by Cherry Burton at the Hampton Court Flower Show (NGS; “Sundays”). The liner is sandwiched up to the required level between two timbers.

 

 

Brick edging with the liner coming up behind for max water level.

 

 

A formal pool with out proper support eventually begins to collapse.

 

 

Stainless steel and wood edge these ultra modern pools.

 

 

This can only be facing for a structure that is either constructed in solid concrete and or lined with a flexible liner.

 

 

Beach effects work very well but they must stop short of covering the bottom of the pool. A lump or ridge under the liner on the marginal shelf level or at the bottom the pool will prevent pebbles from rolling further into the pool.

 

Withy facing!

 

 

 

In Ebb and Flow’s Solar Garden in the 1998 Hampton Court Flower Show the simple paving edge works wonder in making a break in the gravel as lines out the base of what could be a devlishly boring pool.

 

 

 

 

An over the top beach

 

 

 

 

 

Some things, no matter how good they look on paper, just don’t work in the real world.

 

EDGING WITH PLANTS

Some plants will obligingly cover over a multitude of scruffy sins around the edge of a water garden like un-level pools, visible liner and so on. Sometimes though, they are just required to just soften the hard edges of the paving. The fact that some are happy in the water and also on the humid edge also helps to blur the margin between water and garden.

Another edge to a water garden in the Chenies garden at the 2001 Hampton Court Flower Show. Moisture lovers abound, like Day lilies, Hostas, Trollius, Primula and the tufty grass, Carex ‘Bowles Golden’

 

 

An unlikely group of plants working to soften a rock edge

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the water and on the damp banks, the Water Forget-me-not, Myosotis palustris, covers up the margins of muck and water.

 

 

 

 

Wild edge at Hampton Court Flower Show.

The top performers in its watery field. The ground cover plant in the water garden, Creeping Jenny. This is the golden version Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’, Veronica beccabunga and many of the mimulus. See the plant directory for more details