It will soon be time to take on one of the most daunting and time consuming chores of the spring and summer season. No, it’s not spring cleaning or even putting on that new roof, the job at hand is maintaining the lawn. The warming days of spring and frequent rain keeps our lawns growing at a record setting pace for several weeks before the dry period of summer sends us scrambling for the sprinklers to keep it all green and lush. This article will give you an overview of how to edge your lawn.

The trick to keeping your lawn healthy and looking good is early season preparation starting with some basic edging. A well-defined edge to the lawn will keep it looking nice while the edging will also help protect sidewalks and driveways form the often-damaging intrusion of grass, which can cause cracks and become unsightly. Check out or tips below to edge your lawn this spring.

How to edge a lawn – Step One: For most urban and suburban lawns a manual edger is sufficient, but a gas or electric model may be better for larger areas. To begin, simply position the blade of the edger between the sidewalk or driveway and the grass. Put the wheel on the concrete and push and pull until you have cut a clean trench.

How to edge a lawn – Step Two: While edging is primarily done around the edges of the lawn where it meets up with concrete or pavement, it can also be very attractive around trees that will be surrounded by mulch, or at the edge of flower beds. While the hand-powered edger will work in these areas it is more appropriate to use an edging tool, which is simply a shovel with a curved blade.

How to edge a lawn – Step Three: Dig around the base of the tree or flowerbed where you want the edge to be and remove the grass and soil as you work creating a clean edge that is roughly a foot deep. This edge will make it easier to use mulch and can even be accented with some metal, wooden or stone edging materials.

When edging there will be some cleanup afterwards as the soil and sod you remove is left behind. It is a good practice to shake the loose dirt from the sod and put it in the garden or flowerbed and discard the sod. In most cases the edge will remain clean throughout the season, but may need to be touched up a bit in the spring of the following year.