Edging a lawn can be as simple as trimming the grass where it meets the patio, stone pavements and other non-lawn features in your garden. It can also entail installing physical edging such as stone borders or metal sheeting which helps to keep the grass contained.
What is Lawn Edging?
Lawn edging is the process of creating distinct lines that mark the edge of your lawn, and encouraging grass to stay within these lines by cutting and maintaining it. It helps to make your lawn look neat and gives your garden a tidier overall appearance.
Do I Need To Edge My Lawn?
No, you don’t need to edge your lawn. Edging isn’t required to keep your grass healthy and lawns can still look great without well maintained edging. However, people choose to do it to improve the tidiness of their lawn and to create more distinct shapes in the garden. It can really help your garden to look great.
How To Cut A Clean Edge
If your lawn’s 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 hasn’t dried out in the summer sun and heat (although you should, of course, try to prevent this in the summer anyway!).
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 you’re 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!
1. Cut the Edges
Use your half-moon edging tool or spade to cut into the earth at the edge of your lawn and remove the unwanted turf. If you want to achieve very straight results, you could lay out a plank of wood and work along that. If you want to curve the edges to create a more interesting shape, lay out a length of rope as a guide.
2. Mow and Trim
Mow the whole of your lawn then focus on the newly cut edging. Get a pair of long-handled edging shears to trim the grass on the edge line. You can also use ordinary garden shears but edging shears are more efficient and easier to use. Trimming in this way will create a neat and established line.
You can also get electric strimmers which have a head that can rotate to 90 degrees, allowing you to trim the edge.
3. Fit Lawn Edging (optional)
If you want to take the effort out of maintaining your lawn edging, you could invest in metal sheet edging, or plastic or wooden borders. These can be dug into and fitted around your new lawn edge. They prevent grass from growing beyond your marked edge and help to keep your lawn tidy.
You don’t need to fit edging, however; you can simply maintain the edge by trimming periodically and recutting once a year in the spring.
How To Edge Along A Path
Where grass has grown over onto paths, it needs a slightly different technique to keep the grass neat and tidy.
The best tool to use for this is a sharp knife. A larger edging tool or spade would be too big for the finesse of this small area.
1. Cut The Turf
Using your sharp gardening knife, cut the turf just along the edge of the path (or other stone/brick work). Pull the pieces away and put them on your compost.
If your lawn is flush with the path, then you might not need to complete step one but can move straight to step two.
2. Trim
Trim the grass that grows over the path using long-handled grass shears. These help you to get on level with the grass and snip a clean edge. You’ll need to do this fairly often in order to maintain your edging, particularly in the months when grass is growing as its fastest rate.
Keeping your lawn edges looking great is a fantastic way to maintain their shape and help your garden as a whole to look well-maintained and tidy.
