How To Edge Your Lawn

How To Edge A Lawn Without An Edger: You Can Trim It Manually With A Shovel

Dont know how to edge a lawn manually? You dont have to buy an edger to keep your lawn edges neat. Use these 3 ways to edge a lawn without an edger:

How amazing does this lawn look? Its edges are neat and well-defined. You, too, can achieve the same look with your lawn by following my step-by-step tutorials on how to edge a lawn without an edger.

You heard it right! You dont have to buy any fancy tools to keep lawn edges neat. Just your trusty old shovel!

I am all about being resourceful and finding new ways to use tools that I already own. I love giving my old equipment a new purpose. This allows me to maintain curb appeal on a budget.

I want to teach you how to trim edge of lawn manually so you, too, can have a picture-perfect lawn for less!

Lets get right to it!

Contents

Steps

All that is left to do is clean up the excess dirt and tidy the edges of your lawn. Clean up the soil that got onto your driveway, pathway, and sidewalk using a broom and a bucket. And you dont have to throw the collected dirt away. Use it in your garden or flowerbed.

How To Edge A Lawn In 10 Easy Steps

If youve never edged a lawn before, dont worrywell teach you how to get the neatest, nicest edges around your walkways and garden beds.

Your lawn may be a beautiful expanse of lush, green grass, but if you havent edged properly, it wont look all that great. If you dont take a little time and effort, the strip of grass lining your walkways and skirting your driveway and flower beds will look sloppy.

But theres good news. If you want a well-manicured lawn thats easier to maintain, you just need to follow a few simple steps. This Old House will show you how to edge your lawn with a complete, easy-to-follow guide.

Once your lawn is nice and polished, if you want to keep it healthy, consider hiring a professional lawn care company like TruGreen. With five annual plans, TruGreen covers everything from fertilization to aeration. If youd like a free quote from TruGreen, call 1-866-817-2287 or fill out this simple form.

Edging & Ongoing Maintenance

Its time to start edging your lawn. Begin by using your equipment to slowly edge the border of your grass. Move the tool along the existing outline of the yard. If you dont have an established border to follow, the best way to go about this is to follow the edge of your walkway or driveway. Your goal is to remove the overgrown grass so that it is not poking out onto your driveway or other areas. Be sure to use caution and possibly lower your speed when navigating around curved areas. Always wear protective gear such as gloves and safety glasses.

Not unlike other areas you maintain around your property, the edges of your lawn will require routine maintenance every now and then. The frequency of your yard edging will depend on your lawn and how often you fertilize it. Fortunately, this process is much less time consuming after youve taken care of the initial cut. You can start with weekly touch-ups to help keep track of how quickly the grass grows back, which will allow you to set a schedule.

If you have any questions about grass edging, give us a call. You can also visit Lanier Outdoor Equipment and browse our lawn equipment for sale in Buford, GA. Our team would be happy to help you find the right product for your needs. We look forward to assisting you!

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Tools Youll Need To Edge Your Lawn

To start, I should say that you dont need all of these tools. In fact, any one of them will do the trick. You can decide for yourself which will work best for you :

As you can see, trimming lawn edges well doesnt take years of experience, nor does it take a lot of time or money.

With the right tools and some practice, you too can have a beautiful lawn to brag about.

Learn How A Brushcutter Works

Before picking up the tool, understand how it works for best results. Its only the tip that cuts, so keep that in mind when looking to create your straight edge. When cutting, imagine that youre trying to draw a straight line. To get that feeling of a straight line, thats what Im always trying to do, John says. Were only using the tip were not stabbing like a pencil into the paper. Hold the brushcutter square to the grass and run parallel to the footpath.

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Choose Edging & Trimming Tools

The tools for edging a lawn and the ones for trimming a lawn can be different. Proper landscaping means understanding the difference between edging and trimming. With edging, an actual cut is made in the lawn. This edge puts a line between the grass and borders or sidewalks.

Trimming is cutting grass in spaces where your lawn mower cant reach, such as against a wall or fence. There are several manual and power tools you can use to properly edge or trim a lawn.

• String trimmers are available in gas, electric and corded or cordless models. Some come in kits with attachments to tackle different tasks.
• Gas string trimmers are great for larger lawns and can be used when the ground is damp, while electric trimmers are lightweight and more environmentally friendly.
• Cordless string trimmers usually run on rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, which makes them both lightweight and portable. Maintenance is minimal.
• A wheeled lawn edger cuts edges quickly and efficiently, up to 90 feet per minute. Its user-friendly, with fingertip controls and a ratchet-arm with a height adjustment feature.
• A bed edger lets you define and create flower beds in your landscape. Its zero-turn steering makes shaping borders easy.
• Edging shears are ideal for snipping away grass in awkward places such as stepping stones or around garden beds.

Tip: A string trimmer works well for curves while edging shears may be best for garden paths or small patios.

Set The Height Of Your Lawnmower Lower

The very first thing you can do to get a clean edge for your lawn is to adjust the height of your lawnmower lower. The reason for this is because if you keep the height up like normal, some of the grass will likely still hang over the edge of your lawn. When you dont have an edger to clean this up for you, simply setting the height lower on your lawnmower for when you mow the edge will achieve a very similar effect and will keep your lawn looking sharp.

Chances are, the edges of the lawn are up against some kind of cement such as your driveway or the street or sidewalk. You can take advantage of this because your lawn likely sits up above the ground slightly higher than the cement.

The way I always used to like to mow the edge was to slightly set the height lower on my lawnmower and have half the lawnmower on the cement and the other half on the grass. Since the grass is higher up than the cement, your lawnmower will be put on a bit of an angle and will diagonally slice the grass right on the edge. This leads to a super clean cut around the edges and I personally liked this method more than using an edger because it was much faster and easier.

If you decide to give this a try, you should only start by bringing your mower height down by one notch or so because you definitely dont want to cut so low that you end up tearing up the dirt. If you end up doing this, the only way to repair the damage is to reseed those areas.

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Landscape Edging Design Ideas

To give your lawn a major upgrade and make maintenance of your property much simpler, you can install physical lawn borders to separate your lawn from garden beds and walkways.

Purchase landscape edging products in a local store, order them online, or you can DIY the project with whatever you have on hand or can find for free locally.

Installing a physical border at the edge of your lawn or garden beds will help to or other landscaping and define the space. You can install lawn edging in any shape, and , the right lawn edging can make maintenance of your property far simpler.

The right physical barrier at the edge of your lawn can, in many cases, remove the necessity to use a separate trimmer, and even if you do still need a trimmer, the barrier makes it so you dont require as much precision, and you wont have to get out your trimmer quite as often.

Most physical lawn edging options are either driven into or installed into the soil to become a part of the ground and landscape. These can be made from stone, brick, wood, metal, or even plastic.

In this section of my lawn edging guide Ill discuss some of the most popular options, and provide tips about installation and explain why each choice may work for you.

Lets start with

How To Cut Lawn Edges: A Guide To The Perfect Edge

Something that can completely spoil a beautiful lawn is an untidy lawn edge. Not only frustrating to those with an eye for attention to detail, looking after a lawn can be tedious and time-consuming. All this effort and time and be completely put to waste if the edges of a lawn are not cut properly, as this can leave your lawn looking sloppy and ill-kept. Do not fear, as we have the perfect guide for you to get your lawn edges cut in such a way that your lawn is left looking impeccably managed.

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Types Of Edgers And Trimmers

Many people think that if they own a string trimmer they can just edge their lawn and garden beds with that.

Not really.

A string trimmer is really a tool thats designed for cutting grass in hard to reach areas . It can be effective at maintaining the edge you cut around your garden beds with an edger, but it isnt a tool for cutting the edge.

A string trimmer is an essential lawn care tool in my opinion, but owning one doesnt mean you shouldnt also own a tool for edging.

The good news is that there are a wide range of lawn edging tools, and you can find one that works well for your property and your budget with a little guidance.

Ill provide that now:

Edging With A String Trimmer

Youll want to flip the head of the trimmer 180 degrees, making it vertical, with the deflector shield facing toward your body. Walk on the hard surface of the walkway or driveway as you edge.

The form you should take is simple. Keep your arms straight, engage your core, and move your body with deliberate movements, keeping the string trimmer level. This will give you the straightest edge. Be mindful of the direction your string trimmer spins, and move accordingly. Most of them spin the string clockwise, so you should move left to right while trimmingthe trimmings will fall back onto the lawn.

For power edgers and manual edgers, cut just about 2 inches deep.

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How To Edge A Lawn

This article was co-authored by Jeremy Yamaguchi. Jeremy Yamaguchi is a Lawn Care Specialist and the Founder/CEO of Lawn Love, a digital marketplace for lawn care and gardening services. Jeremy provides instant satellite quotes and can coordinate service from a smartphone or web browser. The company has raised funding from notable investors like Y Combinator, Joe Montana, Alexis Ohanian, Barbara Corcoran and others.There are 9 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page.wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, several readers have written to tell us that this article was helpful to them, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 431,328 times.

When the snows of winter melt, you have a lawn that needs maintenance. After you have fertilized and watered, turn your attention to edging and mowing. It is easier to do the job correctly, so learn how to edge a lawn. All you need to do is periodic lawn maintenance once you have established clean edges around yard borders, shrubs, trees, planters and flower beds.

How To Cut A Clean Edge

If your lawns edge is jagged, uneven and broken, then cutting a new edge is a fantastic way to neaten it up.

Spring is a great time of year to cut edging into your lawn: your grass is growing at a good rate and the soil hasnt dried out in the summer sun and heat .

The best tool with which to cut a clean edge into your lawn is a half-moon edging tool. These are designed for edging lawns and therefore cut through the earth effectively and cleanly. If youre going to be edging your lawn every spring for years to come, then it might be worth the small investment. Alternatively, you can use a spade. They can take a little more work, but they will also do the job!

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S To Create A Lawn Edge:

1. Draw out your plans ahead of time so that you can decide if you prefer a straight or curved lawn. It may be helpful to consult with a professional, if possible, to see if one layout is preferable over another based on your location and the slope of your lawn. If you belong to a homeowners association, you may also need to ask permission before performing this type of work on your lawn.

2. Use stakes and strings to plan out and mark your edging according to the diagram you created. If you decided on a curved edging, a garden hose makes a good marker, although you may need to use hooked garden stakes to help keep the hose in place. A piece of rope or heavy twine will also work well.

3. Using a sod cutter, cut along the line you have created and remove the sod. Neatly finish the edging with a trimmer or edger.

4. If you wish to create a decorative edging using concrete, bricks or other edging materials, create a 5-inch deep trench along your new edge. Add sand to the bottom of the trench and build your edging.

Pavers And Other Edging Ideas

Hardscapes edging, such as pavers, will give your entire landscape a finished look. Create a boundary along the border of your sidewalk and along mulched areas. Pavers come in a variety of colors and shapes to match the look of your home. You can set the pavers on top of the ground using a paver base. Or you can dig a trench and put the pavers in so they are level with the surrounding ground. Installing pavers this way makes it easier to mow. Maintain the look with routine edging with a string trimmer.

Hedges make great borders. Keep them maintained so you won’t have to remove large amounts of foliage at any one time. After you groom the perimeter, focus on any existing shrubs and bushes. Prune any excess foliage with hand shears or hedge trimmers, but make sure to work in small sections so you can keep the shapes even. For smaller yards, consider placing new shrubs along the front of your house, near the mailbox or down the walkway.

Tip: A compatible assortment of evergreen shrubbery is a great way to create edging for a lawn.

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How To Edge Your Lawn Properly

Theres nothing wrong with being proud of your grass. Its your slice of paradise, so theres no shame in spending a bit of time learning how to edge your lawn properly so that it stands out.

However, as naturally as lawn mowing may come to you, edging can be a completely different kettle of fish. Read on to learn some of our tips and tricks for achieving a perfectly edged lawn.