For a nice, neat, tidy yard, you’ll need to pay attention to the edges for a clean, finished look. For the lazy man, there are really only two choices as far as keeping their edge – left ragged, or buttressed. Either way, you’ll need some sort of weed trimmer to get where your riding mower or push mower can’t go. The type of border you have will dictate the type of mower or trimmer you’ll need, and how you cut.
Trimmer, Edger, or Combo?
As far as the type of tool you get, it depends what you need. The best bet for a guy looking for a Lazy Lawn is to get a cordless electric combination trimmer/edger. However, if you have a large lawn, you’ll want to get a larger, gas-powered combo that allows you to hit the whole lawn at once. A corded electric won’t reach far enough on large lawns, while a cordless electric likely will run out of charge before you make it around the entire lawn.
Ragged or Buttressed Lawn?
By ragged or buttressed, we mean is there a hard border around the edge of the lawn (buttressed) or is it left ragged, going straight from lawn to garden? If you have it buttressed the whole way around, you really won’t need a combination tool. Edgers are only useful when you have hard borders that are even with or rise above the grass, as you’ll need to trim on the horizontal axis. Edging on a vertical axis is only useful if the edges of your lawns are higher than whatever the border is, to provide a sharp, square edge to the lawn. The if you’re looking to make a truly Lazy Lawn, having a hard edge that rises above will be the best choice, as you’ll only need a trimmer and not a combo. It will save you extra steps.
String or Blade?
When it comes to doing the actual cutting, you can either use a string or a reciprocating blade. Blades will need to be sharpened, but provide better cutting power, and produce less flying debris. String trimmers tend to be lighter, cheaper, and easier to use, and are available as electric or gas. The strings themselves are cheap and easy to replace, instead of needing to be removed and sharpened. String trimmers do tend to throw off quite a bit of debris, making cleaning up a bit more laborious. This labor, in relation to the savings on purchase and upkeep, is worth it. Part of having a Lazy Lawn is also being frugal about it.
