Lawn Edgers?

[Matt Meiser]

We've got the typical black plastic edging around our landscape. Every year we have to cut back any grass growing over it, lift some sections that get pushed down, and maybe do some repairs. I've been thinking maybe it would be easier to ditch the edging, cut a new edge every spring, clean out with a shovel and add back any needed mulch. It looks like the easiest way to do this would be using a lawn edger, and Stihl makes a gearbox unit for my new FS90R trimmer that converts it to an edger. Anyone do it this way?

[Ted Calver]

I dig a small 45 degree angled trench around the bed as a mulch stop and just use the normal string trimmer to keep things neat.

[Jim Koepke]

One reason we moved out to the boonies was to get away from such chores.

jtk

[Matt Meiser]

We live "out in the boonies" but I still like to keep it looking nice.

[Stephen Cherry]

When I worked for a landscaping place, we used small, strait blade shovels, with a d handle. Do it when the ground is not rock solid, and it goes pretty quick.

http://ogdenbotanicalgardens.blogspot.com/2011/05/update-weed-feed-day-tomorrow.html

[Matt Meiser]

Yeah, that's what I've been doing. We bought one of the D-shaped ones this year but I haven't tried it much. I saw I can get this attachment for the FS90 and thought it might be a big timesaver. I'm thinking of asking my dealer if I can borrow the same or similar to try it out.

[paul cottingham]

We live "out in the boonies" but I still like to keep it looking nice.
The easiest and best way to keep a lawn looking nice is to pave it.
YMMV of course. :-)

[Matt Meiser]

10 acres...would look like a Walmart parking lot!

Edit: I mow a little less than 4 of that--other 6 is natural with mowed trails. The only maintenance I do on the rest is an annual brush removal of an invasive species we have in our area.

[Tom Fischer]

I don't own one Matt. Bui I have read that one of the major differences between the pole-type edger (or attachment for a string trimmer), and the edgers with three or four wheels is that the pole type fit on a landscaper's trailer better, take less room. Always more hooks on the sides for more "poles".

I'm probably will buy one this year or next. I want' one with wheels, four stroke engine.

[Matt Meiser]

I've seen those. They seem to go fairly cheap on CL and probably are in good shape but I don't want to give up the garage/shop space.

[Mark Bolton]

I dont know how much you have to do but I do all my edging with an edging spade. Its basically just a square point shovel but instead of having any curves or flanges on the sides to scoop dirt its just dead flat. I keep it sharp occasionally with a grinder and very quickly move around the beds just shaving the grass back at a bevel tossing it in the wagon/wheelbarrow. You only have to do this every couple years as you can rake out the ditch for a couple years and if you use a weedeater (I dont) you can trim the grass edge of the ditch.

I took an oath with myself to eliminate all the motors I could in my life and have never looked back. Didnt do it for any "typical" concerns, just that I got sick of maintaining all the gee-gaws, gas cans, mix oil, and to be honest the noise. Its pretty nice to spend some time in the yard without some 2-4 cycle engine obliterating the peace and quiet. Its not a lot more work, and you lose weight, burn calories, and so on.

I dont have a ton of beds to maintain but even if I did I could imagine a rotation being quite manageable.

[Stephen Cherry]

I want' one with wheels, four stroke engine.

These work good for edging sidewalks, once you have done it a few times. For bed edging, you still need to go back and dig. For professionals, nothing beats a big string trimmer with the really thick string. A good trimmer can edge at a fast walking pace.

[paul cottingham]

10 acres...would look like a Walmart parking lot!

Edit: I mow a little less than 4 of that--other 6 is natural with mowed trails. The only maintenance I do on the rest is an annual brush removal of an invasive species we have in our area.
Hmmm. I fail to see the problem! Easy to care for, and cheap to maintain.
I grew up on a small 10 acre farm. We deliberately didn't plant a lawn, or water nor feed the volunteer lawn that grew up there. Of course we wound up with a lush, thriving lawn that needed constant mowing.
We should have paved it or graveled it!

[Matt Meiser]

I stopped by my Stihl dealer this evening. Interesting fact for Stihl trimmer owners--quite a few of the straight shaft trimmers will actually use the heads off the Kombi system attachments. You just need to loosen the bolts, slip the gearbox off the trimmer, do the same with the Kombi attachment and put it on the trimmer.

Anyway, he's trying to sell me a Bed Redefiner (http://www.stihlusa.com/products/multi-task-tools/accessories/kombisystem-attachments/fbdkm/) attachment. Looks promising. He said they can't keep them in stock, but more due in tomorrow so I might try to stop over there again.

[Don Morris]

I used to have the edging problem trying to keep it neat. My problem with the shovel technique, which I tried for a few years, was that the edge kept creeping wider into the grass in order to be neat. Or...the edge looked ragged. I bought some wide aluminum edging called curv-right (or similar spelling) and that has solved most of that problem. I use a string trimmer to keep the grass neat around the edge of the edging. Doesn't take much time, looks fine. For a large acerage, it might be too expensive. I live on a cul-du-sac with about 8 homes around it. The cul-du-sac has a center island where we have a weeping cherry tree and under it we have two benches and a small round table for wine at 5:00pm when the weather is good. The center part of the island is mulched and the outside 8' is grass. We've also begun to notice the Home Association landscape company that maintains that area and uses the shovel technique to separate the grass from the mulched area, is slowly eroding the amount of grass area in favor of placing a new sharp line at the mulch/grass area.

[Rick Moyer]

I stopped by my Stihl dealer this evening. Interesting fact for Stihl trimmer owners--quite a few of the straight shaft trimmers will actually use the heads off the Kombi system attachments. You just need to loosen the bolts, slip the gearbox off the trimmer, do the same with the Kombi attachment and put it on the trimmer.

Anyway, he's trying to sell me a Bed Redefiner (http://www.stihlusa.com/products/multi-task-tools/accessories/kombisystem-attachments/fbdkm/) attachment. Looks promising. He said they can't keep them in stock, but more due in tomorrow so I might try to stop over there again.
Matt, I have the straight edger attachment for the Kombi. It works decent, MUCH faster than by hand. Curious how the bed redefine differs. Maybe you can see what he says. That wasn't available two years ago.

[Matt Meiser]

It turns out that's exactly what I was originally looking at Rick. It seems the gearbox attachments for the trimmers are going away and the dealer just sells you the Kombi version and removes the stick. He said they've got a pile of half-sticks in the back from people who bought a regular trimmer. I had found Oregon makes a Gator Blade for edgers that cuts a wider "kerf" specifically for edging so that's what I was originally thinking. Being able to edge the walks was a plus but we don't have a lot of concrete to edge so I can whip in to shape easy enough with the string trimmer. The Bed Redefiner has what looks like a blade someone hit a boulder with and then drove over with their truck. It digs out a trench about 2" wide by up to a few inches deep.

Echo makes a similar tool with a much different blade. The videos I saw of the Echo one look decent. Echo's has been out a few years and I can't imagine Stihl wouldn't have designed theirs to be the equal or better. I did find some "after" pictures on the Lawn Site forum. Some guys said the FS90 motor wasn't powerful enough, others said it was. We have really sandy soil around here so I suspect it will work well for me.

[Scott Brihn]

The Stihl looks a little light duty for edging mulch beds. Last year I rented a 4-wheel Brown Bed Edger and in 2-hours re-edged every bed on my heavily landscaped 1-acre lot. It pulverized the soil and piled it up neatly in the bed, making it easy to distribute and cover with fresh mulch.

[Ole Anderson]

Matt, I have the same string trimmer and I bought the edger unit that wasn't designed for it but fits it. It is not a quick connect, you just loosen 2 torx screws, slip one unit off and slip the other on. Make sure they give you the neat torx wrench that goes with it. It edges my curb and drive 5 times faster than my old Sears 3 hp dedicated lawn edger. Don't know how well it would do what you want.

[Ben Hatcher]

If you maintain the edge all year, you can avoid having to redefine it/dig it out again in the spring by raking the mulch out of the edge pocket and back into the bed at the end of your fall clean up.

[Paul McGaha]

Our house is probably a pretty typical suburb type house and lot.

We've had a 4 stroke gasoline edger for years. Easy to use and only have to do it maybe once per month to keep the edge looking good. Our's is from MTD. I think it's 3 1/2 HP. Bought new about 1996. With only using it a few times per year there is no telling how long it will last.

I'm good friends with one of my next door neighbors and I tend to do his house when I do mine. Only takes a few more minutes.

PHM

[Matt Meiser]

Well, I was going to pick one up today, but my dealer's Fedex delivery came, the bed edger heads were on the order, but not to be found. He was hoping there's another box on the truck that the driver missed :eek:

[Matt Meiser]

Paul are you using it on bed edges too?

[Ted Calver]

Another option is to add a mowing strip adjacent to the planting bed to contain the mulch and keep the grass at bay. Can be anything from a poured in place concrete curb to brick pavers or flag stone. My neighbor did this several years ago and it still looks great and does a super job.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXdZQuHrCvU

[Don Morris]

One photo says: "inexpensive and extremely durable". I'd bet not inexpensive in my area.

[Paul McGaha]

Paul are you using it on bed edges too?

I use it for the sidewalks and the driveway and my wife uses it for the bed edges.

What we have is similar to this one:

http://www.mowersdirect.com/lawn/mtd-edgers.html?gclid=CJrTl7f4iLcCFQpN4Aodq2MAzA

The blade can tilt to other than 90* to the edger, a useful feature.

Lot's of places sell them, be easy to look one over closely to see if you think you would like it.

Takes up about half the space of a push mower in terms of storage.

PHM

Matt I'd say the maximum trench from this edger would be about 3/16" x 3".

[Greg Portland]

Yeah, that's what I've been doing. We bought one of the D-shaped ones this year but I haven't tried it much. I saw I can get this attachment for the FS90 and thought it might be a big timesaver. I'm thinking of asking my dealer if I can borrow the same or similar to try it out.
If you're talking about one of those spinning blade edgers then I can tell you that they work best when the wheels have a flat surface to roll against (i.e. edging up against concrete). Cutting a straight line over a bumpy lawn is not simple.

[Matt Meiser]

The bed edgers came in today and I picked one up this afternoon. I got a few minutes to try it around a planting bed in the yard that's an oval maybe 5x10. It took maybe 2-3 minutes to go all the way around and I bet 1/3 the time was a short area where I made it slightly bigger and was digging right through full lawn. It bogged down a little there so I had to slow down. The rest went plenty fast. When I was done I raked a little grass out, spread the dirt a little and then made another pass around with the string trimmer head back on. Worked great. We need to pull a little grass on the inside and then it will be ready for a little mulch. Seems like it was a good buy.

At some point this week I want to pull the blade off. Sure looks like you could run a regular edger blade on there if the arbor is right.

[Matt Meiser]

Gave this a real workout tonight.

- If it weren't for or sandy soil or if I was going to use it a lot I'd definitely want a larger motor, but the 90 works fine for me.
- Probably did around 150-200' of edging in a half hour of machine-time on less than a tank of gas.
- I need to try my harness I usually only use for brush cutting or the shoulder strap that came with the trimmer because its a little awkward to hold at the right angle.
- It does a really nice job. The test area where I pulled the old plastic edging I used this to straighten out and in one area expand the edge. Ran a shovel along and cleaned out the loose excess dirt and put down new mulch in about a 1/2 hour. That area is about 1/2 our fairly large deck's perimeter. The result looks great.
- In areas where I cut a new shape through grass, I found it works well to tear up any remaining grass on the inside.

[Harry Hagan]

I buried over 300’ of drain tile to divert rainwater away from the house and used a Mantis electric tiller to help dig the trenches. One of the accessories included was a “border edger” blade (see photo) that would make your job easy. I use that blade to help bury invisible fence wire.



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[Andrew Pitonyak]

For space reasons, I use an edger attached to my line trimmer. Physically, it is more demanding to use than a standalone edger.... but it works just fine.

[Rick Moyer]

Hey Matt, have you any pics of the edging you did with this? I'm still on the fence because of the cost but think it might be the ticket for me. BTW, you do know you are supposed to pull it backwards to use, right? This was discussed on a forum I was reading when looking into this implement. I have the straight blade edger but that is much better for sidewalks, etc. I am getting the straight shafted string trimmer for my Kombi, also, and will be getting rid of the old Homelite (I think).

[Matt Meiser]

Yes, actually I do. I'd taken some to send my dealer since its so new.

Here's a place I'd just run it around. Cleaning out the excess at the edge is a couple minutes of easy scooping with the shovel.
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Another place with the excess crud cleaned out. This is a long row of Rose of Sharon that used to take me hours with a shovel. 10 minutes to edge and about a 1/2 hour for my wife and daughter to clean up which was relatively easy because now everything was loose.
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Another spot all done.
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And yes, you run it backwards. Its a little awkward but I get better at I went. Echo's version has been around a while so there are some videos out there of theirs in use. Operationally, pretty much the same.

I liked it well enough I went back and bought the cultivator head too.

[Rick Moyer]

Thanks,....Matt!