Using bed edging and agro-fibre in autumn — a guide

When the autumn winds arrive, the leaves change colour and the days grow short­er, the gar­den does not fall asleep at all. It should be a time of intense, thought­ful activ­i­ty that will deter­mine its strength and appear­ance for months to come. The focus is then on cre­at­ing a sol­id foun­da­tion, sav­ing us the trou­ble in spring and pro­tect­ing the plant trea­sures from the harsh­ness of win­ter. Two solu­tions come to the fore in this autumn endeav­our: bed edg­ing and agro-tex­tile.

In today’s post, we aim to pro­vide the knowl­edge to make pru­dent, thought­ful deci­sions about sus­tain­able solu­tions. Help­ing you trans­form your gar­den into a space that is not only pleas­ing to the eye, but also prac­ti­cal and unshake­able in the face of sea­son­al chal­lenges.

Table of contents

• Agro-tex­tile in autumn — selec­tion, use
  • Use of agro fleece in autumn — mulching
  • Pro­tect­ing plants in autumn with agro-tex­tiles
• Agro-tex­tile and agro-tex­tile — dif­fer­ences
• Ideas for using the bed edg­ing in autumn
  • Ben­e­fits of edg­ing in the autumn gar­den
• How to use edg­ing and agro-fibre in autumn
• Autumn ideas for using bed edg­ing and agro-tex­tiles

Agro-textile in autumn — selection, use

Agro fleece is an indis­pens­able mate­r­i­al in autumn gar­den care, offer­ing many pos­si­bil­i­ties. How­ev­er, to get the most out of non­wo­ven fab­ric, it is essen­tial to have an idea of the dif­fer­ences between vari­eties and to dis­tin­guish it from oth­er sim­i­lar-sound­ing mate­ri­als. If you are look­ing for infor­ma­tion on agro-fibre i such as it set upto pro­tect your gar­den in autumn, you’ve come to the right place! But first, let’s start with the basics.

Use of agro fleece in autumn — mulching

Dark agro-tex­tiles (black, brown, green) of medi­um weight (50–100 g/m²) are designed for mulching. Spread over the bed, they reduce weed growth, pro­tect the soil from exces­sive dry­ing and ero­sion caused by heavy rain­fall. They keep the soil moist for longer, which has a pos­i­tive effect on plant vigour. 

The colour of the mulching agro-tex­tile is main­ly of visu­al impor­tance; brown and green blend bet­ter with the nat­ur­al sur­round­ings, while black is often cov­ered with bark or grav­el.

Protecting plants in autumn with agro-textiles 

A light­weight agro-woven fab­ric (17–23 g/m²), usu­al­ly white in colour, is used to cov­er peren­ni­al plants, shrubs and young seedlings. It pro­tects them from frost and freez­ing, while allow­ing air and water to pass through, pre­vent­ing over­heat­ing on sun­ny days and rot­ting. The use of white agro-tex­tile is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant in snow­less win­ters, when plants are deprived of nat­ur­al ther­mal insu­la­tion.

Agro-textile and agro-textile — differences

In autumn, as we pre­pare the gar­den for win­ter rest, it is impor­tant to dis­tin­guish between agro-fibre a agro-tex­tilebecause their dif­fer­ent prop­er­ties affect the year-round con­di­tion of the plants. Agro-tex­tile, which is a light and fluffy mate­r­i­al, is ide­al for cov­er­ing del­i­cate plants, pro­tect­ing them from frost and freez­ing tem­per­a­tures. Its porous struc­ture allows air and water to flow freely, pre­vent­ing over­heat­ing and root rot on sun­ny days. In turn agro-tex­tile is a denser and stronger mate­r­i­al, main­ly intend­ed for mulching. It effec­tive­ly blocks weed growth and pro­tects the soil from mois­ture loss and ero­sion. Due to its struc­ture, it is not suit­able for direct cov­er­ing as it can impede gas exchange and accu­mu­late mois­ture, which neg­a­tive­ly affects the plants.

Ideas for using the bed edging in autumn

Autumn is the ide­al time to install gar­den edg­ing for sev­er­al impor­tant rea­sons. First­ly, once the grow­ing sea­son and major tidy­ing up is com­plete, the bound­aries of flowerbeds and paths are clear­ly vis­i­ble, mak­ing pre­cise delin­eation and instal­la­tion eas­i­er. Sec­ond­ly, the soil is often soft­er and wet­ter, mak­ing it much eas­i­er to dri­ve the fix­ing anchors. This in turn makes instal­la­tion less labour-inten­sive and quick­er. 

The strate­gic use of edg­ing in autumn allows you to pre­pare your gar­den for the arrival of win­ter. They sta­bilise the paving against cycles of ground freez­ing and thaw­ing, which can cause cracks and shifts in alleys or flowerbeds. This action min­imis­es the need for repair work in the spring, which in turn is a sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fit. RecBord edg­ing is there­fore not only a tool for cre­at­ing order, but also part of the ‘for­ti­fi­ca­tion’ of the gar­den for harsh win­ter con­di­tions, ensur­ing its dura­bil­i­ty and good con­di­tion.

Benefits of edging in the autumn garden

A major advan­tage of RecBord edg­ing, espe­cial­ly in the con­text of autumn instal­la­tion, is its excep­tion­al resis­tance to extreme weath­er con­di­tions. The mate­r­i­al from which they are made does not crack in the cold, nor does it fade when exposed to intense UV radi­a­tion in full sun­light. 

In addi­tion, they show a high resis­tance to mechan­i­cal dam­age, mak­ing them resis­tant to impacts and even being run over by a car. This reli­a­bil­i­ty is direct­ly linked to the qual­i­ty of the mate­r­i­al, which, although recy­cled, has been designed to out­per­form cheap­er replace­ments on the mar­ket. 

How to use edging and agro-fibre in autumn

Edg­ing enhances the char­ac­ter of the gar­den, brings order and can even act as a bar­ri­er to unin­vit­ed guests. And the cor­rect selec­tion and place­ment of agro-tex­tile is an inte­gral part of autumn care, pro­tect­ing the root sys­tem from frost and reduc­ing the need for weed­ing next sea­son. Below you will find instruc­tions to prop­er­ly pre­pare your gar­den for win­ter by com­bin­ing edg­ing with agro-fibre.

Installation of edging:

1. Line delin­eation: Use string and stakes to pre­cise­ly mark out the shape of the flowerbed.
2. Dig­ging the groove: Along the des­ig­nat­ed line, dig a shal­low trench (about 10 cm deep) and remove weeds and roots.
3. Assem­bly: Set the edg­ing in the groove. If you are using ready-made plas­tic or met­al edg­ing, fix it with pins. For con­crete or brick ones, lay on a bed of sand or dry con­crete and tamp it down to set­tle sta­bly.
4. Back­fill­ing: Fill the space around the edg­ing with soil, tamp­ing it in thor­ough­ly to make the struc­ture sta­ble.

Laying agro-fibre:

1. Sub­strate prepa­ra­tion: In an already marked out bed, care­ful­ly remove all weeds, roots and stones. Lev­el and rake the soil.
2. Lay­ing out the agro-fibre: Roll out the agro-fleece so that the whole bed is cov­ered. If you need sev­er­al pieces, over­lap them (at least 10–15 cm) so that weeds don’t poke through the gaps.
3. Pin dri­ving: Use spe­cial pins (agro-tex­tile pins) to fix the mate­r­i­al to the ground. Dri­ve them in approx­i­mate­ly every 1–2 metres and more firm­ly at the cor­ners.
4. Hole cut­ting: Care­ful­ly cut small X‑shaped holes in the agro-tex­tile where the plants are to grow.
5. Spread­ing mulch: Spread a lay­er of mulch, such as bark, wood chips or peb­bles, on top of the agro-tex­tile. This lay­er should be about 5–10 cm thick.

Prop­er­ly prepar­ing your gar­den in autumn is an invest­ment that will result in lush and healthy plants next sea­son.

Autumn ideas for using bed edging and agro-textiles

Autumn prepa­ra­tion of the gar­den requires the judi­cious selec­tion of mate­ri­als and meth­ods that will guar­an­tee longevi­ty and a pleas­ant appear­ance for many years to come, while reduc­ing the effort of care. With sol­id bor­ders and the judi­cious use of agro-tex­tiles, win­ter relax­ation in the gar­den will be peace­ful and spring awak­en­ing will occur in a tidy, beau­ti­ful space.

Let autumn be the start of trans­form­ing your gar­den into a place that delights with vigour all year round. What edg­ing has worked best for you?