Devin Devine stone masonry consultant
devin@devineescapes.com
plastic edging for flagstone?
I posted a few DIY-landscape and how-to-hardscape type articles on my blog last year. Ever since then, I’ve been getting emails* with related questions. Let me share one right now in a brand new Devine Escapes blog segment called Ask Devin.
“Cheryl” writes:
Devin, love your flagstone walkways. What are you using for edging to keep the stones and screenings in place. I live in WI so freeze thaw is a issue. Have 16 foot Rhino Edge, but it’s recycled plastic, and not sure I want to use that. Any advice you can provide.
Well Cheryl, I never use plastic edging, nor any sort of edging product, on my flagstone work. Plastic edging is generally used for paver walkways and patios. The paver bricks are small and need to be restrained at the edge, or else they may wobble, or come loose under-foot. With my flagstone work, I make sure to use larger stones along the edge, stones that are too thick and/or have to much surface area, to likely ever come loose. Let me be utterly clear on this: there is absolutely no reason to use plastic edging restraints for flagstone work.
Related content: no plastic at all in the landscape
Maybe you saw it on the DIY channel or the HGTV
Sometimes those shows have good advice….but not always. Listen to a guy you can trust– listen to your trusty-dusty, handy-dandy friendly neighborhood stone guy. 24 years experience hardscaping, a love for stone and a love for writing about stone–I’d never steer you wrong! Let’s say you goofed up and placed a way-too-small piece of flagstone right on the edge of your walkway or patio. No problem right– you’ll just use some plastic edging! Wrong.
That edging works great with regular shaped, square pavers, with smooth edges. Not so with natural stone. Furthermore, those pavers are butted right up against other pavers–so the edging is helping to keep them all snuggly fit together. Your flagstones are probably not fit so tightly together. The edging just does not help.
HOT TIP!
If you’re building your own stone patio, the best labor saving device you can buy is the grabo. This is a vacuum powered suction cup that allows you to lift the flagstone right up off the ground, with having to pry them up. Grabo can be purchased here.
Flagstone Patio. Larger stones are used along the edge. Also note that the stones come together a bit right at the edge….I’ll generally do that, let the flagstone joints get tighter, at the lawns border. My flagstone joints are less than an inch wide to begin with anyway. Having said that, I should also state that if your flagstones are laid in a clumsier manner, and/or have wider joints, then plastic edging will in no way save you. Just lay them stones like you mean it, you’ll be alright! Or, hire the right pro. When hiring a pro always look over their portfolio well. Do they have photos proving they do this sort of work, and do it well?
Keep your flagstones stable by a) laying them right b) using stones that are appropriate for how you are laying them. Stones are too small for flagging? Lay them as cobbles! Or, get larger stones. Next question!
But wait…some people think edging will somehow keep the lawn and patio “separate”
No, it will not. Your lawn will not intrude into your patio. Maybe a blade of grass, here and there–but I’ve never had any problem like that. Your joint filler material, your sand/stone dust/whatever should not wash out into your lawn–I’ve covered that issue in previous blog posts. Anyway, if you use plastic edging, in the hopes of keeping your lawn and patio “separate” what you will end up with is a line of plastic between your patio and lawn. It will look silly! The edging will most likely heave up, and sit higher than the flagstone and be a bit of a hassle to dig up, pull out those 12″ nails–which are designed to rust and expand, making them hard to extract from the ground.
… therefore you will NEVER bother digging up and lowering that edging. And after all of that? Your joint filler still washed out into your lawn! Ha. Should have read Devin’s blog and used stone dust, not sand or polymeric sand! And….you’ll still have one or two blades of grass between your flagstones.
I speak from experience. I see bad DIY patios all the time. My customers pay me to teach them how to re-do it right, or else they hire me and my crew to re-do it.
Related hardscaping DIY articles:
- flagstone joints, polymeric sand or stone dust: what to use?
- cutting flagstone accurately with a rock-pick AKA brick hammer without using power tools
- building a dry stone wall, a general guide for beginners
Here’s a flagstone walkway in process, being built. No restraint or edge material is needed–just heavy flagstones, well-fit, and with no small stones along the border.
DIY Flagstone and Hardscape help
My rates for DIY consultations are as follows:
$80.00 for a half hour consultation
$119.00 for a full hour
Monies are payable via paypal, or Zelle. Just deposit some money into my account, using my email address and email me to tell me your phone number. I’ll tell you what my schedule looks like, you’ll pick a time, and then I’ll call you the appointed hour.
Please feel free to post your (brief) question in the comments below. That way, when I answer your question, it can be connected right here with the related article. If you have many questions or need in-depth explanation, I’ve got you covered–I now offer DIY consultation services, and am available to walk you through your entire hardscape, flagstone or masonry project. Either way, I’m in your corner!
Devin, I love your approach to landscaping as a dynamic part of the environment! I am embarrassed to say I had not considered all the implications of using polymeric sand before hearing your voice.
Having just read your post regarding edging, I am curious how you approach a walkway (such as mine) where it is surrounded on either side by beds that taper up above the level of the walkway. We heap on a fair bit of mulch, and it seems likely it will end up on the path without some kind of edge border. I will be digging up the existing brick and dirt path to install a dry mounted flagstone path… With aka screenings. I could potentially raise it a bit by adding a thicker layer of gravel first.
Thanks for sharing your passion with the world, yours is a refreshing and inspiring voice!
Mike H.
Hello Mike. My first thought here would be to use stone as a border, between the mulch beds and the flagstone….possibly using lengths of flagstone, set upright as edge stone. Just set them plenty deep, if your using such thin stone…and I’d still use thicker pieces of flagstone, if taking that route.
Or the bricks that you are digging out could possibly be used as edging, stood upright, with at least as much buried as sticks out.
Now I’ve done walkways where there was a mulch bed right next to it–many, in fact, where no edging was needed….because I graded it in such a way where the mulch bed was only a few inches higher than the walkway–and tapered gradually enough. But if the change in elevation is great enough, then year, a thin curbstone/brick type effect, or a single course of thicker stone just laid on the ground…..or even a proper stacked wall. Either way, if i was the one solving this issue, I’d probably be solving it with stone. Having not actually seen the site, that’s the best I can say.
That help? If not, you could take a photo, and host it somewhere like imgur.c o m or somewhere and post us a link to it–or just email it to me, whichever.
Devin,
I am getting quotes to have a present brick walkway taken up and having a brand new paver walkway put in its place. I presently don’t have any plastic edging supporting the brick walkway. The walkway has grass on one side of it and mulch on the other side. My question to you is, is plastic edging necessary to keep the new pavers in place? I’ve been getting mixed advice.
Thanks,
Roxann
My specialty here is flagstone.
A larger brick/paver, on the edge will not need edging. 12×12 pavers–no edging needed.
Long narrow brick shaped pavers–no edge needed if they outer bricks are a soldier course. A bit more stable than laid long-wise.
A 4×6″ paver on the edge however will tend to wobble underfoot, so some type of edging, or curb stone, or some sort of restraint may be called for.
In conclusion, it really is a function of the size, and thickness of the paver, as to whether or not edging would be called for. Me, of all the patios and walkways that I build, I just used large pavers (natural stone) for the outer paving stones.
There’s y 2bits. Good luck 🙂
Hello Devin,
I am in the process of laying a flagstone patio and really need some advice. We live in the mountains of North Idaho and cannot excavate down into the ground around our home because of extensive underlying rock. Is it possible to lay the patio and, after the fact, have a tapered border of rock and/or gravel placed around the perimeter of the patio so as to stabilize the structure? Any suggestions would be sincerely appreciated. Thanks, ~Tom
I’m really not certain what you mean.
I don’t know what you mean by tapered border, don’t know size of your stone, ect ect and would need photos to really say.
I think we could suss it out in 20 minutes, if you wanted to do a phone consultation.
flagstone and hardscape consultations
Is it necessary to run a plate compactor over the flagstone after the aggregate is brushed into the cracks to get aggregate to settle? Or, does washing it with a hose serve the same purpose? (I’m using a crushed slate ‘fines’ as the aggregate.)
Also, when you install the flagstone, are the flagstones laid level with the topsoil level or, do you sink them slightly below grade. I’m using 1.5″ thick flagstones and trying to figure out how high to bring the sub base/leveling base before laying flagstone.
Thanks for your help. Your approach to stone work is truly inspiring!
Do not run a plate compactor over the flagstone. Set each stone into place with a mallet. Set the aggregate into place with a hose. Set your flagstones just slightly above the existing soil grade, about an inch, give or take. Then use soil leftover from your excavation to grade up to the patio. For the final grade, your soil should come right up to the top of the flagstone, then sloped slightly down from there.
Good luck and have a good time building your flagstone patio.
Thanks for your help! I’m a landscape contractor and only recently have I realized how much I enjoy stonework. Your knowledge of flagstone is truly impressive. Job well done sir!
Awesome. I’m glad to help!
Hey! I wanted to ask one question to see if I’m a candidate for a phone convo:). I am trying to do a flagstone path through my courtyard but invisioned more of an English garden look, with thyme ground cover between. Does the no plastic border rule apply for me too?
Indeed. Plastic edging is simply not needed for a flagstone walkway.
I mean, there might be *some cases where you want to use a border of some kind….but plastic edging is not very useful, reliable, or good looking, for use with flagstone. There are many better options. Personally, most of my work has not needed a border of any kind, but if a walkway of mine did have a border, it would be stone. Or maybe wood. Never any of that plastic edging though. It usually comes loose, pops up, …I’m not a fan.
I read that we should use stone dust between flagstones and never sand, but what should we use as a base. Also how deep should the base be for a patio or for a walkway?
Road base gravel for the foundation. That should be a 3/4 inch crushed stone, with fines (stone dusy). 4 inch in south land, 6 inch if you have freeze and thaw to deal with. Use the same stone dust that you’re using for the joints as the leveling agent for the flagstones.
More info here https://www.devineescapes.com/flagstone-what-to-use-sand-cement-or-gravel/%25
I need your advice as to how to build my 75’x3.5′ flagstone walkway. I’m at 425-822-8761 on the west coast so 3 hours behind you. do we talk for a few minutes first and then I pay you for a half hr or pay you now? thanks.
You can send me $80 via paypal, or zelle, for a half hour consultation.
https://www.paypal.me/DevinDevine
Email photos to devin@devineescapes.com
Thanks
We are building a square flagstone patio that is surrounded on both sides by brick walls. I’m worried about slope/drainage for a 20′ x 20′ patio and digging too deep so close to the house. I plan to dig just about 1.5 inches near the house so that the patio comes up about 4″ closest to the house walls. Does this seem reasonable?
Thanks,
Suzanne
There’s too many things here that i don’t know.
1/4″ fall per foot. 20′ of patio then should have (approximately) 5″ of fall or pitch, to properly shed water away from the house.
Hi, we’re building a 600 square foot flagstone patio. We only partially excavated the area (a few inches below the ground) before filling it with crush ‘n run & rock screenings, contained by metal edging. Now we’re at the point where we’re wondering if we need to reinforce the metal edging around the outside. Basically, we realized we are building a raised patio (our soil is mostly clay with high water content and in a part of the yard where the water tends to collect so we hoped that by building a raised patio it would keep water from collecting). We are in North Carolina. My question is similar to Tom’s above – how can we reinforce the patio which is now sticking out of the ground at least 5 inches? Should we fill it with cement, build a border of pavers, add gravel/rocks to the exterior of the edging, or something else?
Thanks so much.
Hello. So yeah, you don’t want to use a metal edging as the support for a raised patio. I wouldn’t want to border a stone patio with pavers though…so I’d maybe find a 7″ thick stone of some sort and bury 2″ of it. Usually, if I’m building a patio above grade I’ll either build a short wall first, and have the patio on top of the wall or I’ll just grade soil up to the edge of the patio. To build up the soil 5″ higher you may need to taper it over about 3 or 4′. This won’t feel too steep. Really, any grade change of less than 7″, I’ll be more likely to grade soil up to it, rather than trying to retain soil and leave a step for the edge of your patio.
So that’s what I’d do a) border with stone, or more likely b) grade up to it, and have either lawn it garden coming right up to the edge of the stone patio, and taper gently from there.
If this side of the patio that is currently 5″ above grade is 20′ long…then you can probably feather it out using just about a yard or topsoil.
Hope that helps!
Hi- Thanks for all the great info!- Do you have a thickness of flagstone you recommend?
You’re welcome.
Dry laid flagstone, you want to be about 1.5″ to 2″ thick. Thicker works too, but then it’s heavier to work with and also you get less square footage per ton. Good luck–and check out the rest of my how-to articles HERE
Enjoy 🙂
Hi Devin, Thanks for all the info you provide – Your work is Awesome!
My question is that I will be doing a natural edge Bluestone patio and about a 5′ length ends at a steep hill where 5 wood steps lead down to a driveway. The stairs have currently been there for 5 years and have not moved but the existing stone patio has sunk in that area, I suspect because the stone dust has been pushed out over time. The stairs have 3 stringers and it is laying against that hill to the patio. I was thinking of just backing the upper part of the stringer with trex decking or the like (it won’t be seen).
I was going to do stone steps which would retain the 3/4minus and the stone dust for the patio but have decided on wood steps as there is so much other surrounding stone I need to soften the look.
Can you think of a better way of doing it? Thanks! Mark
IDK, without seeing photos, but it sounds like you need a retaining wall.