Saving my borders from my chickens

Might keep the earth off the grass but it wouldn't keep your hens off the borders themselves. The only way to do that is to keep them penned up and not let them free range i'm afraid.  Mine have been banned from the garden as they are eating every new shoot that appears  :x  

Mind you they do have a big field to "play" in so I don't feel too bad !

You could try putting up fencing around your borders at a height that the hens wouldn't get over but then that may spoil the look of your garden, sorry !!

Agree with ck2day - try and pen your girls in - depending on the size of your garden of course - if you want a nicely kept garden with neat flowers beds and a nice lawn.

My set up is that my four girls have plenty of lawn, beds and shrubs in their run from the rest of the garden.  Before that they had the run of the garden but spent most of their time on the patio under the kitchen window waiting for my boys to throw them cherry toms, grapes and other deli snacks out to them.  They would even stay and roost behind the pots and not bother going into their house.

They would also scratch around in my pots digging out all the plants so they could use them as a dust bath!!!!!! :roll:  :roll:  :roll:

Now all I have to do in try and pen in my two boys of 10 and 14 so they dont ruin my beds and lawn from when they play football. :roll:

So good luck with whatever you decide  

My chooks have a shrub garden to dig in, it's about 10 ft deep and about 20 ft wide, you can see about a quarter of it here.  They don't eat the shrubs and they love digging in it :!: