What is a Lawn Edger? Is it worth purchasing?

What is a Lawn Edger?

A mechanical edger is a machine that edges up lawns, flower beds and pathways usually by using a vertical spinning blade with varying number of blades and widths.

Why use a Lawn Edger?

The operator is able to edge various borders at a continuous slow walking pace. When you compare this to a ‘half moon’ spade then the time and back pain saving is significant.

The edger gives a fantastic clean edge and removes some of the annual over grown inverted cliff edge that can occur that sometimes strimmers struggle to remove giving a jagged appearance.

A professional edger will also be tough enough to reinstate a path, lawn or flowerbed edge removing up to 10mm worth of unwanted edge. Remember – whatever you cut off you have to pick up.

How do you use a Lawn Edger?

Firstly, decide what you are wanting to edge and make your life easy by doing the prep work beforehand. For example; if you are attempting to straighten up an overgrown lawn edge, firstly get two sticks and a long piece of string. Place each stick at each end of the lawn you want to straighten and tie the string between them giving you a good guide line.

Have a look along the guide line for stones, roots or any other object that might get in the way of the blade. If you have a can of spray paint use this to trace the string line out and then remove the string. Alternatively, work 1-2cm away from the string but obviously much care is needed not to hit the string so it is advisable to only do this if you have done this before and you are confident with the machine.

Put the machine next to the area to be edged and work out how deep you need the blade to work (usually about 1-2 inches), using the lowering handle work out how deep the blade needs to be with the engine off. Make a note of where this is and line the machine up again. Turn the machine on and lower the blade to the predetermined depth and walk slowly following the paint and/or string. When finished collect up the debris to reveal your new clean straight edge.

More challenging edge work such as jigsaw type flower beds can also be completed but a double wheel kit would make this easier as it increases the width of the front wheel percentage to help ensure one of the wheels is in contact with the lawn edge even on more intricate edges.

For pathways its normally better to put the machine on the ground side rather than lawn side as this is usually flatter. Lower the blade into the turf/side (one inch) and follow the path edge ensuring the blade does not hit the path edge or the machine will jump and you may damage the path.

A Feature of the Eliet KS300 Pro is that the operator can easily change the angle of the blade into two further angles. This is useful for two reasons; the first is the if the operator is working on a slope then the vertical blade would cut into the side of the edge and the machine is on the slope, simply selecting an angle would reduce the chance of undercutting the edge. Also, when cutting out tighter circles, for around trees for example then it is better to put a slight angle on the blade so there is less chance of the blade being dragged into the edge.

What to be careful of

Roots, large stones, curbs and concrete pathway edges can all damage the machine and blade and should be avoided.