EDGING YOUR LAWN
GENERAL LAWN MAINTENANCE
With the majority of tasks on your lawn it may take some time to see the benefit of them, but by cutting the edge of your lawn, you will get a quick win. It may take a little time to get a healthy lawn, but there is no reason to have a lawn that is not neat.
Different Tools
There are a variety of tools that can be used to trim the edge of your lawn but they all pretty much do the same job. The main tools are:
Check out the review of these different tools
here.
Open v Closed Edges
Your lawn will have either an open or a closed edge and this will affect how you manage it.
An open edge is where there is nothing butting up to the edge of the lawn, so this would normally be found next to a flower bed.
A closed edge is where there is something against the side of the lawn, which might be a patio or driveway.
Closed Edge
Open Edge
An open edge is nice and simple to manage with either edging shears or you can use a strimmer, if you are confident in doing so. You will be looking to remove any grass that is overhanging into the flowerbed with the shears.
Move your way around the lawn and make cuts with your edging shears and trim any straggling grass. Be careful not to cut into the lawn too much by tilting the shears towards you. You are only looking to cut off any overhanging grass and create an edge that is roughly square.
Closed Edge
With a closed edge, you may find it difficult to get a pair of edging shears in to cut so you will be best placed with an edging iron or if you are confident in doing so, you can use a strimmer. When cutting a closed edge, you will be looking to separate the lawn and the adjoining area, by creating a clean cut between the two.
To do this, make repeated cuts downwards with the
edging iron by pressing down with your foot on the tool. Make sure to remove the iron vertically from the lawn before then moving along and making the next cut. You are looking to cut away any grass that has grown laterally onto the adjoining areas.
If you do have a closed edge, you will need to be careful of the effect this has on the lawn. The adjoining area stores up heat and continues to heat the lawn throughout the day, which can cause the edge of the lawn to be especially dry. To combat this, you can either but in some sort of barrier there, such as timber, or you can combat it by watering the edge more heavily.
How Often
Don’t worry, you don’t need to cut the edge of your lawn every time that you mow it. Usually, you will need to cut the edges every 2 or 3 times that you
mow your lawn, but this depends on how neat you would like to keep your lawn.