Shocked by a great homeowner request

Surprise!

It’s not often that I get great requests from homeowners so when it happens we have to celebrate with a blog post. I was on site recently, pruning shrubs one last time before the season ends, when I was called away to take care of a request.

Now, this is where usually alarm bells go off. I always pray for something easy but many times it’s a badly timed pruning request or a request to remove perfectly good plants.

Goodbye lawn

This part of the blog will make my mentor Todd Major very happy because it involves a section of lawn going missing. Todd hates lawns.

The owners built up their lawn with soil and seed from the edge right up to the plants. Then they watched crews weekly line trim around the plants. Well, ‘around’ is very generous. We know that in practice lawn care machines cause a lot of damage to landscape plants. This was the case here.

So, my very pleasant task was to remove the lawn to create some separation between the plants and lawn care machines. Note that this is also a recommendation for tree wells. To protect the tree, we establish a tree well so there is no reason for machines to get anywhere close to plant tissues.

Don’t hit plants

Plants repeatedly hit by lawn care machines experience stress; and they grow slowly because they must use up precious resources for repairs. Weekly abuse can lead to death of the plant. Death means removal and replacement which can add up when trees are involved. Don’t abuse your landscape plants!

A new edge

I used an edging shovel to establish a new deep edge and then I removed the excess grass; always taking care not to remove too much soil. Remember, the edge should be established at a crisp ninety degrees.

Pictured above is the completed request. There is enough separation now to keep the rose, willow and dogwood away from line edger damage. That makes this request great!

Protect your plants from lawn care machine damage.