Need lawn edging advice

jmc · Sep 13, 2003

Wish there was a way to put in that flimsey plastic lawn edging with the tractor but it will have to be by hand. Any tips on getting a good trench in heavy clay?

ScottAR · Sep 13, 2003

Square nose spade. Use a water hose for laying out the curves.

DocHeb · Sep 13, 2003

Make sure you put the stakes horizontally through the edging, rather than vertically. The horizontal stakes aren't heaved as easily out of the ground by frost.

ns_in_tex · Sep 13, 2003

John,
My first thought to your question would be to try a coulter, mounted to the side of your FEL bucket. I mounted one to a tool bar on my fel (bucket removed) & use it to edge the concrete drive way.

I bet it would work for you edging.

RobertN · Sep 14, 2003

In a pinch the claw from a framing hammer works... If you have 100's of feet, it would be a pain. It's still a pain no matter what. But, it works pretty quickly. I like to have one good hammer, and a second old beater hammer just for stuff like that.

MossRoad · Sep 14, 2003

Here's a link to a picture of a tool that I use to make small trenches. It is a plow share bolted to a piece of angle iron, which is welded to a quick attach plate for my Power Trac. I imagine that you could make something similar for a 3pt hitch just as easily. If the soil is too hard, I make multiple passes, increasing the depth on each pass until I get the full depth that I need. Once I make the slice, I can use the FEL to scoop out the flower bed area of any sod or debris and it just peels up along the line very nicely. I got the plow share at TSC and the angle iron at a scrap yard. I have less than $20.00 in it.

jmc · Sep 15, 2003

Thanks for the replies. The two tractor attachments are appealing, except that they would probably need a vertical pivot axis to follow the tight contours on this particuliar layout. Right now I'm considering making a 16 inch diameter 'cutter" that fits on my walk behind rototiller. Plan to hit the salvage yard today for material. About the only place I like to shop...

RobS · Sep 15, 2003

I put in about 80 feet of the stuff Saturday. Used my backhoe! (hey, got to justify it somehow, right) I only dug down about 4 inches and really didn't remove soil, only loosened it. Our old neighbors mentioned a tool at Lowes but I couldn't find it.

Short of the backhoe, I've had good luck with the square nosed spade that has been mentioned /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

MossRoad · Sep 15, 2003

<font color="blue"> I've had good luck with the square nosed spade that has been mentioned </font>

Manual labor... bad.
Tractor implements... good.

/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

But seriously, the old garden hose for a marker and flat shovel is a tried and true method. In hard soil, I've taken a soaker hose and laid it out where I want the trench and left it on overnight. Did a great job of losening up the soil.