Quality is in the workmanship

Long live the lawn! Every nature lover feels a spontaneous sense of bliss when, in the early morning sun, he can look over the sparkle of dew beads on a beautiful full green turf. The satisfaction this creates is justified because as a greenkeeper 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, fertilization program, irrigation, aeration with top dressing and perhaps even an overseeding treatment. Of course, the splendor of such a dense and well-rooted lawn really comes into its own when it is nicely mowed to a uniform length.

The imperfection of mowing

Whether this mowing is done with a reel mower, rotary 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, patio edges, encroaches on flower borders or messes up bunker contours. This push for expansion is not uniform, 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 that the mower cannot reach and thus 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. The effort and time invested to achieve beautiful grass growth and a neat lawn coiffure is completely wasted by this. To address 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 tight cut along the length of the lawn, it is important that the edger has sturdy wheels and a stable undercarriage with a rigid frame that gives the operator at the handlebar maximum control to immediately adjust any deviation. Professional edge cutters have a steel blade with a sharp cut, which is essential to cleanly cut the grass 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 benefits the tool life of the blade.

Cutting along curbs and terraces

If you want to cut along curb stones, it is recommended to replace the single blade with a blade disc. This provides better guidance along the paving, which gives more comfort when cutting and reduces the risk of blade breakage or damage to 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 of his result but also radiates on the quality of his work delivered which, in the end, everyone who enjoys the lawn will surely appreciate.