Did you just ask, “What the heck is a lawn edger?” It seems that many homeowners today don’t pay attention to the fine lost art of lawn edging but if you are a landscape professional, you had better! Lawn Edging provides that nice, tight, crisp and FINISHED look to any well cared for lawn. It is the process of cutting a perfectly (or near perfect) straight line on the edge of the perimeter of your lawn that borders your driveway, curb, or street.

There are two kinds of lawn edgers, the manual kind and the motorized kind. Both can work quite well if used correctly and many lawn care professional still opt for the manual ones as they are completely noise free, don’t require gas or electric, and if the blade is sharp, they work extremely well.

Manual lawn edgers have a long handle and at the end there is a wheel and a blade. To use them, you simply walk along the edge of your lawn with the wheel side to the grass and the blade next to your lawn, curb, etc. Now, simply walking won’t give you the edge you want…you need to put a bit of force into the edger. This will force the blade to cut of any grass that overlaps from the yard into the other area. It will also force the blade deeper into the ground slicing a nice deep groove that will help keep the job looking nice for weeks to come. Usually, a nice firm back and forth motion is what is required to achieve a deep groove. The manual edger can be a little work, but the results will be well worth it. Keeping the blade sharp is the key to making this tool for you.

For those who wouldn’t be caught be caught dead using anything that is not motorized, there are those types of edgers as well. Many weed eater type trimmers allow you to do edging with them, but using a tool that is specialized for lawn edging will often provide better and more easily achieved results. Many allow you to use the nylon string, but serious landscapers often opt for the hard plastic or even metal blades. These blades produce deep, straight grooves and tear through the grass and dirt like it wasn’t even there. The settings on the machine are what is most important to ensure that the groove it not TOO deep, but produces a tight, clean edge. Most have guards or some type of measuring attachment so you can regulate how deep the groove you are cutting is. In addition, keeping the machine at about a 45 degree angle will help you to achieve the desired results as well. The key for the motorized lawn edgers is to GO SLOW! If you try to rush the job, you might wind up with the jagged mess of dirt and grass rather than the straight clean line you were after.

One key safety tip here, like with all landscaping tools, is to make sure you use eye protection. When edging, it is common that debris will be thrown upwards and if you don’t have eye protection, this debris is likely to find its way into your eyeballs making for a less than enjoyable lawn edging experience. Remember, take it slow…edging requires a bit of practice, but once you get the hang of it, edging will be the final step that sets you apart from other companies and will give your jobs an incredibly high quality professional appaearance.

Interested in starting a Lawn Care Business? Click here to learn more about our Lawn Care Business Guide.