Edging finishes lawn, makes life easier for the mower

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, April 19, 2006

M owing the lawn, of course, is never really just mowing the lawn.

There’s always the dreaded task of edging, weed eating and sometimes regular weeding to do when you’re done.

That’s the downside of turf grass. It’s beautiful and wonderfully soothing for feet, but is also quite insidious, sneaking in between pavers and spilling over just about any edge you can create – not exactly low maintenance.

It’s why steadily more people are turning to more robust, lawnmower-friendly concrete edging.

“It will eliminate 85 and 90 percent of your weed eating,” said Jim Weaver of Complete Landscape Edging of Arlington, who will showcase various concrete edging styles at the Everett Home and Garden Show this weekend. “We inset it two inches into the ground so that your mower deck will ride over the top of it.”

Edging contractors such as Weaver mix the concrete on site and then use concrete extruding machines to “pour” specially shaped edging without using wood or plywood forms. Expansion joints keep the material from cracking during extreme temperature swings.

“It actually comes out of the machine just like toothpaste,” said Weaver, who has been in business for about three years. “Every year it just seems to get more and more (popular) as people learn more about it and see it.”

You can have concrete edging stamped with colors and decorative designs and it can cost less than some fancier pavers at $4 to $9 a foot, depending on the job.

“It just depends on whether we have to cut sod, what the prep work is,” Weaver said of the average price. “It can have a slate pattern, cobblestone, brick.”

Exposed aggregate, a stylish driveway material, is one of the most popular finishes for American Curb &Edging of Lynnwood, another curbing business set to talk edging at the show.

“That’s my favorite because it’s going to look the same in 10 years,” said American Curb &Edging owner Paul Thompson, who has been in the concrete edging business for 15 years. “It’s a durable finish for the Northwest.”

Thanks to the flexibility of edging projects, customers have many options with most installations lasting only one or two days.

“We do pathways, custom gardens. We can do all sorts of creative designs with it,” Thompson said.

“You can put it along your driveway. We can put rebar in it so it can stand up to cars hitting it.”

Raised beds, pea patch gardens, you name it, you can probably have it created or edged with concrete.

“There lot of different shapes and sizes,” Thompson said. “I have probably 15 different models that I could put on that machine.”

So what’s the downside?

You just have to be ready to make a commitment. Sure, you can rip concrete edging out like anything else, but are you ready to set the size of your garden beds for the foreseeable future?

Weaver said seeing is believing when it comes to the crisp look of permanent edging.

“Once this goes in your yard, it’s complete,” he said. “It just tidies it up it, cleans it up.”

Reporter Sarah Jackson: 425-339-3037 or sjackson@ heraldnet.com.