if you want to improve the edge of your lawn to tidy up some areas where the
grass doesn't grow properly and create a professional clean edge which is easy
to install and low-cost that's what we're going to cover in this video
this is part three of the four-week lawn renovation challenge we're going to talk you
step by step through how you can transform the look of your lawn link in all the products I'm
using in the videos covering each stage of the process in this video we're going to be talking
about cleaning up the edges of the lawn whilst waiting for the delivery of products that we've
just ordered if you haven't seen part 1 & 2 I put a link up click the card and you can check
out the other videos all these videos are going to be in a playlist together so you can follow along
the first step to edging is try to mark out your edges I'm using just a piece of builders line and
in this particular case we're going to be tidying up an area of grass which sits right up against
the driveway it never grows properly and is always badly damaged during the spell of drought probably
because the roots are too shot this is being marked out a bricks width using the line so I've
got a steady line to follow using a gentle using a Half moon edger I've linked some examples in
the description below follow the line along with your string line to cut out the section you need
it does help to have a sharp blade on the tool and also it can help if you're finding it difficult to
push into the ground to saturate the ground maybe the day before just so it's easier to work with
after the sections been cut out I'd like to then cut the grass into sections going the
opposite way just into more manageable chunks you can lift out with a spade
also decided to take this section off which will square off the lawn this section seems
to run away quite a lot off on the lawn and when I've dug down in some sample areas you
can really see that it's just laid onto the hard core of the house foundation there's no
chance you're gonna get good quality grass growing in this sort of shallow root system
one thing I'm finding everywhere is leather jackets these things will definitely have
been a contributing factor to why the lawns in such bad condition I've actually made a video
on how to treat leather jackets I'll put a link in the card above if you want to check that out
more leather jackets I'm pretty sure a lot of new build properties are infested with these
things if anyone's got any methods to control them or you've had experience with them drop
me a comment below I'd be interested to find out okay so we're just digging up the edge and
you can see here the roots are really shallow the grass isn't gonna grow well in this area
I'm using a four by one pressure treated timber I've laid the boards out so I can get a feel of
how the edging might look on the lawn I would suggest measuring up for your lawn tried to get
a feel of whether you need four by one or maybe a six by one but either way you can
start to see the shape of the lawn looking a lot more crisp take out any rocks and other debris
that you might find during the installation process in the next step I'm going to show
you how to install the posts and fix the boards to it but just before I do that if you enjoying
the content please subscribe to the channel and leave a comment below you can also send
me your 4-week renovation photos on Facebook and Twitter to let me know you get on once all
the debris has been removed and the edges have been cut you can then start installing the board
of course considering it's a new built property the topsoil actually looks in
pretty good nick the problem I've got is it's just buried too close to the house
foundations and stuffs not going to grow no matter how good the soil is you need to
have a good couple of inches of topsoil to get the type of results we're looking for
to install the boards I like to lay all the boards out so I can see what I'm working with you also
need to pay consideration if you're going to look to join any boards together and ideally
you want to try and put your joins in places that might look even in my case I've split
the drawing roughly down the middle mark the lengths out with the set square and cut along
using the spirit level you can find the level of the ground you can see from here some of
the low spots of the lawn that are going to need levelling out but the good thing about
using this type of edging is I can also use it as a screed when I'm laying the topsoil down so
I get a real nice and flat finish in terms of the posts I'm going to be using four by two and
I'm gonna cut the depth of the post between two and three times the length of the board
put in a slight angle on the bottom of the peg makes it a little bit easy to knock in
and it also forces the peg to sort of leverage off against the board and onto the surface the
easiest way I found to produce the holes is to use a bulb auger the one I'm using I've linked
in the description below it is the easiest method to produce holes that you can just
drill down with the auger and then knock the post in with measuring up the space in between
each of my pegs I'm drilling down with the auger using a sacrificial piece of wood on the top so
I don't get some hammer rash with it and then I'm fixing the board to those posts using some
screws through the back before doing all the final things here I'm just going to check everything's
level before I put the final screws in and we should have something that's pretty solid
after the posts are in I like to go back round and compact the area with a piece
of wood I'm not doing a great example of it because it's quite hard to do with one hand
but basically we're looking to compact it down just so nothing moves after we've installed it
after all the posts are in and the board's been secured the last step is to finish off
the edge in some sort of gravel just to tidy up all the finish and help suppress the weeds
in some parts I did use a weed suppressant fabric which I've linked in the description
below this will give you another protection to stop weeds coming through and here's the final
result the overall board of the lawn looks much crisper and using this levelling mechanism with
these boards also is going to help me get a nice level finish for when I'm putting
the topsoil down to the lawn all the materials used are going to be linked in the description
below if you want to cost out some prices for a project like this it's really easy to maintain
after installation because you can just mow right up to the border and I'm really impressed
if you'd like to see more content like this and general lawn tips check out
the 4-week renovation playlist or somewhere my other lawn care content is linked above