Edging Your Lawn
Along with mowing and trimming, lawn edging is an important lawn maintenance task that will help your yard look well kept. Edging keeps grass from growing onto walkways, patios, and driveways, and maintains a boarder around flower beds. Edging does not need to be done as often as mowing; edging before or ager every other mow is usually enough.
Edging Equipment
There are two main types of edging equipment – manual and powered. One type of manual edger is a curved blade on a handle used to cut into the sod. A simple wheel edger is another piece of basic edging equipment. It consists of a handle, a wheel that will guide the blade along the edge of the concrete area, and a cutting blade.
Oil or electric powered edgers come in various sizes. Some are walk-behind, almost push-mower size, while others are smaller and lighter weight. They are fitted with wheels to run along the pavement that you are edging around. Blades are adjustable to match the cutting depth you need and create an edge that is perfect for your lawn.
String trimmers can also be used as a type of lawn edger. Whether you buy a dedicated lawn edger or use a string trimmer for edging is a personal choice. Some homeowners and many professionals prefer the way an edger cuts, while others think they can achieve a similar result with their string-line trimmer.
Edging With A Manual Edger
Using a hand-held bladed edger is can be hard work, and is impractical if you have a large area to edge. It is, however, the simplest edging tool and can work for some situations.
When using a manual wheel edger, the key to getting an nice edge is speed and consistency. Rest the wheel on the edge of the area you are working on so the blade can cut into the grass. Move the edger back and forth with a quick, steady motion, trying to keep the blade from touching the concrete.
Edging With An Edging Machine
With the right tools, edging is not a hard or particularly time consuming task. To get the best edge, run your edger with the wheel on concrete or another smooth surface. If you have thick grass or clay soil, start with a shallow blade setting. Cut slowly, moving the blade back and forth along, but not touching, the concrete area. To trim a beveled, or angled, edge you can use an edger with adjustable blade angle or a string-line trimmer.
Lawn edging, whichever type of equipment you use, will help you maintain an attractive and healthy yard. By keeping grass from growing into or on concrete areas and flower beds, you can keep the lawn looking well-trimmed and avoid more extensive maintenance in the future.
