Grass under fence....

[Dean]

Someone said to me to spray glyphosphate on a straight line below the (cedar wood) fence we have, to kill the grass there and make a small border. Its a pain to strim the grass, I keep ripping off parts of the fence surface.

Tips and alternatives welcomed here. Fence is around 300' long around the whole yard.

Thanks

Dean

[- Tom -]

If I had a 300' cedar fence, hell, *any* 300' wood fence, I wouldn't spoil the appearance by leaving a dead patch under it. Yes, it'll reduce the strimming but it'll look bad. Too, weeds will germinate and thank you for the opportunity to grow without the need to compete with the grass for the sunlight. Instead, try a bit of soil sterilant at the base of each post. The resulting dead patch will harbor no plants for several months but might have a tendency to expand as ground water moves through the soil. Don't apply it within the root zone of any desirable plants. Prometon (spray) or Bromacil (granular) are options.

Tip: Cut around the posts (and sapling bark) with the trimmer at a slower engine speed. A trimmer doesn't always need to be run at full speed to be effective.

Tom

[Timothy]

Good day Dean. If your looking for a earth friendly way of dealing with the grass, try weed burning.

you start burning in the early spring once a week the grass will be gone and stay gone. There is no need to worry about setting your fence on fire due to the amount of time it takes the weedburner to work. The grass will die after 1 or 2 seconds of heat. If you burn every other mowing all your edging will stay clean. During the heat of the summer, the return of the grass/weeds will be very low.

If possible, you could place 2X6 or 2X8 boards under the fence. Then you can mow along the board's edge and the grass will not grow up through the fence. The boards will last 10+ years (if you use treated wood) and it's not a horrible look for the fence. With that said though, $6.00 dollars per ten foot board can add up quite quickly.

Next time you build a fence, see if the fence can be 4 or 5 inches off the ground, this way you will be ablr to string trim under the fence with out fence damage.

Good luck.....

[Dean]

Thanks Tim and Tom:)

I didn't build the fence, it was here when I moved in last year. It had to be jack-hammered in and concrete poored apparently. Anyway, it does (annoyingly) reach the ground all the way along, between the posts.

I do have one of those flame throwers! Maybe I'll give it a try. I never even thought about that. One thing I do know though is that cedar burns in 1-2 seconds!

I'll see how it goes.

Cheers,

Dean

[MaryL]

I applied a very thin line of RoundUp at the edge of a chain link fence at my previous home. It was almost impossible to trim along that fence! It looked bad for awhile after the first application because everything was then just brown and dead-looking (which it was). However, I found that the brown eventually disintegrated, leaving a *very* thin (if you are careful) area of soil, and it was easy to maintain that by very occasional reapplications of RoundUp.