How To Have Clean Edges In A Lawn

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How To Edge A Lawn By Hand

Edging your lawn has to one of the most high impact jobs to improve the appearance of your property. It really does catch peoples eye and gives your home a tidy appearance. Learn how today in this great article, how to edge a lawn by hand.

Edging a lawn is the process of leaving a sharp clean line around the perimeter of your grass lawn. This can be along a footpath, driveway or flower bed. It gives your garden a well cared for appearance, which doesn't take long to do if done regulary.

The usual process for in depth lawn care looks something like this:

Dethatching or moss removal if required.
Aerate the lawn
Mow the lawn
Apply fertilizer
Edge the lawn
Tidy the cuttings/ debris – usually with a lawn vacuum or leaf blower.

You can edge your lawn with either a powered tool like a string trimmer or use a manual edging tool. I would interpret edging a lawn by hand refers to using a manual tool. This is what i will stick to in my article.

There are a number of manual hand tools available for you to choose from. I will go through them and discuss their roles in edging a lawn.

1. The Steel Landscaping Edger

This is the oldest method for manual edging. You will have most likely seen it lying against a wall of the garden shed and wondered what it's for. These normally have a shaft about 3-4 feet long and a half moon steel blade. At the bottom it has footrests on either side of the shaft.

The footrests work in two ways..

1. Place your foot on the tool to push the blade into the ground using the power of body weight/leg

2. The foot rests act as a depth control. This allows the user to maintain an even depth of cut as they move along the line.

Where should i use this type of edger?

This edger is most commonly used when you want to remove grass sod from a flower bed or lawn. Or if a lot of grass and sod is growing over a path or driveway.

How to edge a lawn by hand

The first thing you want to do is mark the lawn where you want it edged. You can do this by tying a piece of string between two stakes to give you a straight line. Or lay a straight edged board along the edge of the lawn which you want to edge.

If you need to do a curve you could mark it out using your hose pipe as a marker.

Next you take the tool and place it at the line and push it into the ground. Do this by pressing your foot down on the footrest. Then lift the edger from the ground and move it along the line half the width of the cutting blade. Now push down again.

You only move it half the width of the blade. This keeps the depth even and make it easier to push into the ground.

When you have completed the cut all the way along, use an ordinary spade to cut away the unwanted sods. Cut at 90 degrees to the edging line into manageable lengths. These sods can now be removed from the garden.

In this video below, see how the footrest acts as a depth gauge. This provides a consistent depth all the way along the edge. This is slightly more difficult to maintain if you just use a garden spade.

You can also use this tool just to cut back to an existing line which has started to become overgrown.

This is normally the case when maintaining your lawn. The more often you maintain and tend to your lawn the smaller the sods/ cuttings will be.

This leads me to the next tool you could use to maintain your grass edge.

Best manual lawn edger

It is better to buy hand tools them with a good wooden shaft rather than a steel one. A wooden shaft (preferably Ash) will last every bit as long as a steel shaft. Just beware that it is not mistreated.

A wooden shaft has a much nicer feel in your hands. It is also lighter than the equivalent shaft made from steel.

Take a look at this manual edger made by Spear and Jackson with its wooden shaft and polished stainless steel cutting head.

2. The Dual Wheel Rotary Edger

This handy tool is a more recent addition to the family of edging tools. It is quicker to cover distance in lightly overgrown grass but it's capabilities are restricted when cutting sods.

The dual wheel rotary edger is used to maintain an existing line along the edge of your garden. It has a steel finger blades about 6 inches in diameter. These are attached to one side of a rubber wheel. The steel finger side cuts the grass edge. The rubber wheel runs along the grass or the kerb to turn the wheel around.

When you push the rubber wheels along the edge of the grass growing alongside a footpath or driveway. The rubber wheel running on the ground turns the steel blade/fingers at 90 degrees to the path. This cuts into the overgrown grass along the edge.

This edging tool works best when it doesn't have a lot to cut through.

It becomes difficult to push the more sod you have to cut- so it is best to do it often.

It is best to run this tool around the perimeter of the lawn ever time you cut the grass. This will keep the amount of overgrown grass to a minimum.

This edging tool does not leave as clean of a cut line at the edge of you lawn. The grass has a slightly more hacked finish. Although it does create an edge its not as clean an edge like the steel landscaping edger. Or even a powered rotary edger.

Also you can't really just set it down and walk around the perimeter. It needs to be pushed back and forth 3 to 4 times to properly cut all the grass. This is energy sapping if you have left the edging for a long time.

See it in action in this video below…..

A dual wheel rotary edger is it works best on hard path to run the drive wheels on.

The real benefit of this tool is that it is so quick to edge a long run of lawn. Compare this to the longer time using a steel half moon edger.

Which brand of dual wheel edger should I buy?

The Rotary Edger in the Video above is made by Aimes. But some people were not impressed by the strength of the handle.

Truper make have one and it is made with much higher quality materials. Most users reported that it had a strong handle and works really well.

Take a look at the Truper rotary wheel edger here to see what you think!

3. Edging Shears

Edging shears are used when there is no excess soil to remove from the edge of the lawn. You simply clip the long grass off the edge of the lawn and that is all. Edging shears are more for people who are really on top of their game with regards to garden maintenance. They should be used to clip the grass very regulary during the growing season.

Edging shears work just like a pair of scissor. Don't move the two handles together. This can cause jerky movements which will lead to an uneven cut. The correct way is to keep the rear handle vertical and operate the rear front back and forth. This will open and close the shears.

You should operate the opening and closing of the shears at a steady pace. Use a smooth quick clip as this aids a better cut of the grass. Closing the shears too slowly it makes it harder to cut through the grass. This requires more effort on your part.

See the video below on the correct operation of the shears

The shears shown in the video above are made by Spear and Jackson. This is a brand renouned for quality and craftmanship. If you are looking to buy a pair of garden lawn shears you can't go wrong with these.

The Finnish company Fiskars also make great products.They are renouned for how sharp their tools are. Have a look at these edging shears made by Fiskars – beautiful!

After edging your lawn it is a good idea to weed the flower beds. A great idea for this is if you have a small cultivator – it saves a lot of back breaking work!

I hope you found this post informative and helpful. Happy edging!