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  Dan Frazer Gardening July 23, 2011 at 1:51pm

  Most domestic gardens get the small strimmer , as you say, horizontal and then vertical if there are bare edges. I would guess the average lawn takes me 5 minutes to edge in this way.

   

  Larger commercial sites are edged with the brushcutter horizontally, and beds/borders edged vertically with the small strimmer.

   

  I don't really have any verges that I would spray the edge; my sites need to look smart and a brown strip would not be a good thing. I do spray the fencelines of wire fences as strimmers and wire don't mix! The housing estates etc can take up to 40 minutes to edge with the brushcutter. I hate doing this as windows and grass are usually quite close to each other. There are one or two areas of very stony grass out of sight that I spray simply so I can avoid running a machine over the area and risking breaking windows.

   

  Where I do spray I am happy using glyph products, which even though they need repeating maybe 3 times during the season still works out economical and easy to do.
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  Dan Frazer Gardening July 23, 2011 at 2:17pm

  Don't mention gravel paths! Why do people do it? Especially those that have no boundary at all and the stones run through the grass at the edge! It's almost as bad as lining a small border with weed membrane rendering any future soil cultivation or new planting impossible!
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  Ofer El-hashahar July 23, 2011 at 2:19pm

  Stuart, does it takes longer using the shears? ( never used it myself, we never had them) is it easier or a boring job, is it easier for shorter people?

  do you have any figure of how often or how long does it takes per length, that can really help me?

   

  with many thanks for both your reasponse

   
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  Stuart @ Eco Garden Maintenance July 23, 2011 at 9:34pm

  I switched from shears to the strimmer years ago as the shears used to make my hands ache. I may give it a go again and see what happens. Will cut down on petrol consumption. I take it you either pick the cuttings up by hand or blow them on to the lawn
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  Matt Brown July 23, 2011 at 10:24pm

  i switch and change some times it can be easier to use edging shears where there are overhanging plants but i do keep at least a hoe width between the lawn edge and plants as for the cuttings i edge before i mow and most of it gets picked up by the mower what is left i run a hoe over if its a boarder let the worms have it or if its a path i'll sweep or blow it.
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  Si @ GS July 24, 2011 at 11:03am

  I go round once with the strimmer and then back round with sthil petrol edger. usually gets every blade of grass, if there are any left behind I take them off with the hoe on the way round the beds. If there is gravel or flags then the shears come out
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  Ofer El-hashahar August 1, 2011 at 5:43pm

  Many thanks to you all,

   

  I am writing about it and find it useful.

  Reading this post it seems like most prfer to use the strimmer

  but just can not use it in some situations:

  of gravel and turf or plants near the edge or fence near it.

   

  Few points :

  1.  Ground Force they always used edgings around their graveled areas - Ok , their wooden ones will not last more than 4-5 years in the good case- but they did ( It was one of the most popular programes in israel, you will be suprised and raised the gardening level a lot, adding water features/ grasses, and deacking into gardening)

   

  2. In the last few years that I worked as a landscaper/ designer we built 1-2 gardens a week (3teams) and I always used lawn edging. I offerd the customer to choose the quality from mewduim to top ( never offerd the rubish ones that get brittled).

   

  3. were I had gardens with edgings installed near border we only used the strimmer horizantal only and using it as a guide ment very fast strim- as you must know how fast it is to strim near a path or a wall.

  4. were I had gravel and turf with edging I used just to mow over 2 wheels out of the turf.

   

  the difficult thing was to make the customer to understand that he should have it were he had turf for many years  with no edgings.

  On new gardens it was  easy as my customers trusted me ( and had the wallet open ).