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Lawn Maintenance Solutions for Creaky Gardeners

© Carol Wallace

Allegedly, it is the lawn, not the garden, that eats up most of our time, energy and natural resources. You couldn't prove it here - ours never gets watered, or fed, and gets mowed only when the antique Cub Cadet is having a good day. But that neglected lawn does lead to other problems in the yard - like when it decides to invade the flower beds, or grow up between immovable rocks so that it can't be pulled or mowed at all.

Quick Solutions
Supposedly, if I create little trenches, two inches deep and two inches wide, around the perimeter of the beds, the grass will be unable to make the leap into the flowers. And if you can manage this, it is an invaluable trick that not only saves labor in the end, but makes the beds look very neat.

We can't do that there. Much of our land is right on the mountaintop. We are lucky in some spots to be able to dig a full two inches before hitting the top of the mountain. And where the soil is deep, there are still large boulders that would need to be pried up before a neat trench could be dug. So I've found other tactics to help combat the invasion of the turf.

One is to edge the beds with a mowing strip. This is a strip flat enough for the lawn mover to be able to pass over it, but wide enough not to endanger the garden. It can be a narrow path of brick or stone, or merely a wide edging of gravel fines - the ones that compact well and form a nice, non-skid surface if you roll them. As long as the paving/path is wide enough that the mower can get to all the grass without touching garden plants, this means you won't have to go out and edge things, and the grass won't have much chance of taking over the garden.

Using Groundcovers
An easier, and for me more successful tactic is to plant a dense groundcover at the edges of the bed, letting them creep out onto the lawn. A dense groundcover smothers weeds and grass, looks great, lends an interesting texture to the ground and - if you choose carefully - is extremely low-maintenance. This is also a great way to deal with trees - it's hard to mow close to them without hurting the roots - so do away with the grass and plant a wide circle of groundcover there. Voila. Problem solved, more visual interest in the landscape - and less lawn to mow.

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