The art of edge trimming: How to make your lawn the talk of the town

Things to manage

When trying to create a fantastic lawn in the town, you need to maintain the following things;

Uneven lawn edges

If the lawn edges are usually broken, rough and uneven, they will mess all up and ruin the beauty of your lawn. To ensure fair, straight lines, you need to establish well-maintained lawn edges. You may want to re-cut the edges for the great looking lawn once per year.

Broken lawn edges

Broken edges not only cause the lawn and landscape look messy but also make mowing and edging even more challenging. To improve the appearance of your lawn and make mowing smoother, you should do some fast and easy repairs.

Lawn edges and borders

Where grass continually grows to the boundary, or where lawn edges continuously look untidy, making mowing difficult, you may want to consider adding a permanent physical lawn edge. You might add a brick edging, but it’s costly, and it requires time, effort, and some bricklaying expertise.

Two different lawn edging types

Before we get going, it’s essential to note that there are two distinct types of lawn edge;

Open edges – these are the edges of your lawn that are exposed; along the planted boundaries, for example.

Closed edges – where another surface touches the edge of the lawn; a path, a mowing strip or a driveway.

You’re going to treat each form of edge slightly differently, so we’re going to take care of them specifically.

Edging a lawn with open edges

Developing and maintaining open edges is pretty simple, and you can use a variety of tools to do this. Follow the following techniques to create and maintain an open edges lawn.

Mark the edge you want to trim

It’s best to use a long wooden plank as your guide for straight edges. You can move it into the lawn that way, and you can be sure that it won’t move. Alternatively, it would help if you stood on the plank to hold it in place.

If you are making curved or wavy edges, use a warm hosepipe or a piece of rope to lock it in place with some U-shaped garden pegs. Alternatively, if you are cleaning up an old edge, you can use the current border as your map.

Cut the edges and remove the cut turf

There are a few tools that you can use to cut new edges.

> A half-moon edging iron

> A powered edge cutter

Note that a half-moon cutter is ideally suited for cutting straight edges. The top edge of the blades is trampled so that you can move into the grass by the force of your foot. It also serves as a depth indicator so that the edges can be cut to a uniform depth. However, a half-moon edger isn’t excellent at cutting edges.

The powered edge cutter works best. You just walk behind it and direct it as the spinning blade cuts the side. The fact that they have wheels makes it much easier to cut curved edges.

With the latest edges trimmed, you’re going to want to eliminate the excess turf. This provides a well-defined edge.

Protect the edges

Everyone likes to protect their lawn edges from damage and weather. An easy way to do this is to stack some soil up against the edge of the turf and make a 20-degree slope to the boundary. This prevents the edges of the lawn from drying out and turning yellow or brown when the environment is warm.

Another way to secure the edges is to add a lawn edging products. Doing this stops the edges of your turf from stripping away so that you don’t have to continue re-cutting them.

Trim after mowing

Cut the turf at the edge of your lawn each two to three cuts with the mower to prevent the grass from protruding the borders and appearing untidy. The suggestion is to use a pair of edging scissors.

Some of the better grass trimmers, however, have heads that rotate so that you can trim the edges. It takes a decent amount of skill to create tidy edges with a hedge trimmer.

Maintaining a closed edges lawn

In several ways, maintaining the closed edges is simpler than open edges since the edges of the lawn are determined by the road, wall or fence that it meets.

Paths and driveways

If your lawn reaches a driveway or path, then you may be able to slide your lawnmower straight over it and use it as a mowing line. However, lawns can actually expand along the edges of the path, forming an unclear, rough edge.

Try to use a powered lawn edger to maintain the edges well marked. You can also use a half-moon edging iron, but it can take some time.

Walls and fences

If your lawn hits a wall or fence, even the most fantastic lawn mowers would not be able to access right up to the edge. The only choice in this situation is to use a hedge trimmer.

More often than not, closed lawn edges are sidewalks, driveways, fences or walls. During the summers, they can get hot during the day, and they can hold on to the heat even when the temperature cools down in the evening. This causes the surface and turf to dry out at the edges of the lawn and turn brown.

So if your lawn hits a driveway, a path, a fence or a wall, remember to keep the edges thoroughly watered during the summers. Another way to get to cope with the issue is to add an edge product.

Conclusion

As we said right at the start of this post, nothing kills the appearance of a lawn like messy edges. By understanding how to edge the lawn correctly, you will always be able to create a ‘finished’ look for your lawn.

Not only that but also defined edges provide a sense of order in your yard, clearly distinguishing various locations and creating recognisable shapes. It’s an extremely easy way to give your lawn a facelift.

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