I have not achieved this in my own garden, but I like the look of plants being the edging or border.
I am going to use the cheap plastic edging, but want to hide it by growing plants just inside it.
Where there is no "lawn" then I like just a gravel or mulch path, and a natural transition to the garden beds.
Gravel is a good place to grow some wildflowers and other plants. We used to have a gravel parking patch,
and I am sorry that I loaded organic matter over it. The parking patch was ideal for growing Iceland poppy and
phacelia campanularia.
One of the reasons that borders or edgings are required:-- is to let visitors know where they can walk.
Plastic box planters can be used as borders too. If they are filled with lighter potting soil, they can be moved and the grass mowed to the bed, and then they can be positioned over the line of the bed.
My late DH was a finishing carpenter, and he liked to lay everything out using his right angle tool!
To overcome the lack of curves in garden beds---I would plant some plants so they would grow out over the straight edges. That way I obtained some curvature to the rectangular beds.

Well, there appears to be one member here, hate to spoil a perfect record, that uses cheap plastic edging in a straight line.My wife always says I plant things like soldiers, all in a straight line. I have tried to improve on that but I do still have straight edgings on some of my beds, not all!

There is nothing wrong with straight edgings on beds if you like that look.
That is what makes gardening interesting--different people like different looks.

Yes, please don't take offence
I did go on (to try and get my foot out of my mouth) and explain that it is specificly the very narrow beds up against the house, which usually have just foundation plants that I am against. (Or perhaps I was more specific in the popdcast about scale in the garden )

Either way, your beds look fine

And there's nothing wrong with cheap plastic edging (hey- I love cheap!) except that it falls apart way too fast in our extreme sun.

Oh I do understand...here are pictures of my "very narrow beds up against the house with the foundation plants"....nah, just kidding!!
You know I have had some plastic edging in place for over ten years, I think a lot of the problem is in the installation. The way I do it, and I think this is the way it is meant to be done, is to only leave the very top rounded part exposed, the rest is under ground. I think most people try to use it as a small retainer wall and leave a lot of the plastic exposed that should actually be underground. Of course to keep it that way you would have to go back and and some soil around it periodically because of erosion around it. Believe me no offense was taken, and I do have other beds with the other much criticized border... Liriope. Liriope is great for a border because after you make one border (which is normally free around here, from gift plants) you can then make the rest of your borders free from your own plants.


Oh, got carried away there, forgot the most important part, I am a week behind in the pod casts. I have been to busy with Dave's great new feature the two of you mentioned in the pod cast. I have been taking photos and gathering up old note books and scrap pieces of paper etc. trying to get all my info together in the new plant list addition. Great work, and very enjoyable pod casts.