Tom Bryant Seabreeze Property Services Portland, Maine

We like to use natural products wherever possible. For high-end residential, we try to use a lot of stone edging and things like that to secure pavers, brick patios or walkways. The everyday product that we use is called Snap Edge paver edging out of Canada. It’s 100 percent low profile and super easy to use and is easily accessible here. A lot of our local vendors carry it. And the best part about it is that it allows us to make really cool curves and bends, inside-outside curves and corners. It has a double-walled construction. I can snip pieces out of it to open it up and create really tight bends. It secures and works easily. It’s pretty much our day-to-day edging that we use for most of our hardscape patios and walkways.

Joshua Jones Mass Hardscapes Holliston, Mass.

Joshua Jones of Mass Hardscapes says he likes Pave Tool Innovators’ Quick-E-Hybrid Edging for its strength and ease of installation. (Photo: Joshua Jones)

We started using Pave Tool Innovators’ Quick-E-Hybrid Edging because instead of the regular spikes, it has V spikes with a lot more surface area to add strength to the edging. We just found that the hybrid edging is much cleaner. It installs quicker, too. It’s basically like an aluminum L-bracket in 8-foot-long pieces. One bundle is 200 linear feet; and you can carry that with one hand. The hybrid edging works on traditional base systems and an open-graded base system and you can put traditional steel spikes in it. They go in at a 45-degree angle, so when frost tries to push the edging up it doesn’t move. It is costly compared to buying concrete, but you can justify that added cost by having a much better product, something that’s stronger and will help your space stay beautiful like the day it was finished.

Josh Fontanez Forni Landscaping Arts Lakewood, Ohio

We adopted the laying pavers over concrete method probably five years ago. So being on concrete, if it’s a uniformed product like Unilock’s Umbriano or Beacon Hill, we don’t use any edging, we just glue it. SRW is our go-to adhesive. If it’s a product over concrete that has some variations to it like wet-cast products from Unilock, we use Perma-Edge. It’s a mixture, mortar-type substance that you press along the outer edge of the patio. If it’s a small patio that’s going over the base, we use your standard eight-foot section snap edging with 10-inch pins. I know some guys will be wary about gluing borders. I’m coming up on almost a decade on one that I glued with no pop or movement. I think I did my first patio 18 years ago, so I have a wide range of experience. I’ve tried almost everything and I found it works well, for us at least.

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