Quality is in the finish

Long live the lawn! Every nature lover feels a spontaneous sense of bliss when, in the early morning sun, he or she can overlook the sparkle of dew beads on a beautiful full green turf. The satisfaction this creates is justified because as a green keeper you know very well how much care and dedication it takes to create and maintain such a beautiful grass carpet.

Such an ornamental lawn requires its annual scarification, fertilisation programme, irrigation, aeration with top dressing and maybe even an overseeding treatment. Of course, the splendour of such a dense and well-rooted lawn only really comes into its own when it is mowed to a nice uniform length.

The imperfection of mowing

Whether this mowing is done with a reel mower, circular mower, flail mower, manually or by a mowing robot, there is one area where every mower falls short and subsequently destroys the entire look of the lawn: namely, the lawn edges. At those edges, the lawn tends to expand and extend its perimeter. In the process, the grass overgrows copings, terrace edges, encroaches on flower borders or spoils bunker contours. This expansion drive is not even, giving the lawn an erratic contour line at the edges that gives it an unkempt appearance. A lot of mowers have a cutting range that does not extend beyond their wheels. This creates grass that grows just on the lawn edge where the mower cannot reach and so is not cut. This advancing grass is in stark contrast to the milled lawn cut.   

The lawn edge solution

For lawn lovers, these neglected lawn edges are a real eyesore. This completely wastes the effort and time invested to achieve beautiful grass growth and a neat lawn coiffure. To tackle this imperfection, you can trim the grass edges with an edge trimmer. Such a device is specially designed for this application and has a vertically rotating blade that rotates on the side of the machine and allows you to cut away the overgrown grass beyond the edge. In order to apply a nice continuous clean cut along the length of the lawn, it is important that the edge trimmer has sturdy wheels and a stable chassis with a rigid frame that gives the operator maximum control at the handlebar to immediately adjust any deviation. Professional edge trimmers have a steel blade with a sharp cut, which is essential to cut the grass cleanly without disturbing the structure of the grass edge. If necessary, for example in spring, such a blade can also be used to cut into the soil to reshape the decay at the edge tightly. On the better machines, the cutting head can be angled so that when a maintenance cut is made, the blade only cuts the grass and does not have to go into the soil. This improves the tool life of the blade.

Cutting along kerbs and terraces

If you want to cut along curb stones, it is advisable to replace the single blade with a blade disc. This ensures better guidance along the paving, which gives more comfort when cutting and reduces the risk of the blade breaking or damaging the pavement. If the grass edges are also perfectly finished then the lawn gets that extra touch that takes the overall look to the next level. For a greenkeeper, this increases the satisfaction with his result but also radiates on the quality of his work delivered which, in the end, everyone who enjoys the lawn will surely appreciate.