Black and Decker LE750 hog edger

[Rick]

Hi,

This is an electric edger that is advertised as a trench digger as well. It goes for about $89. I would like to dig small trenches where my mulch beds border my lawn to keep grass out of the mulch beds. Is this the right tool for the job or is this something better left to a professional. I'm a novice gardener who is looking for the easiest and cheapest way to keeping things looking good. If you have experience with this I would like to hear about it. Thanks for any input.

Rick

[Warren]

I own one of these. It's a great tool for maintaining an edge. You don't have to worry about having enough gas/oil mix around as you would with a small gas powered edger. Bigger gas powered edgers with 4-stroke engines use straight gas, but they're rather expensive, and built for professional/commercial use.

As for the "trenches", what that means in the description of the Edge Hog is that you can pull up the guide piece that would normally guide you along an established edge, and cut, well, let's call it "freehand". It also, like most consumer-level edgers, doesn't cut very deep compared to a commercial edger.

You can read my (somewhat short) Amazon.com review of the Edge Hog here:

*I* would do (keeping in mind that it's just my opinion) is get a professional to (re)-establish the edges of the bed. (It may actually be that the intended edge is further out than it looks right now because the grass has so aggressively taken over.) Let him know you want a notch, and not just a simple slice at the edge of the bed.

Then each time you mow the lawn, use the Edge Hog on half your beds, and the next time you mow, do it on the other half. (Or maybe 1/3, making a complete round every three mowings, but if you go much further apart than that, it ceases to be simple maintenance, and becomes a job of it's own.)

In it's price range, I believe the Edge Hog is a great deal. (Unless, of course, a 100' extension cord doesn't even reach as far as you need to go.)

I use it in conjunction with the Grass Hog string trimmer. (But don't slip into trying to use the string trimmer as an edger. That'll only work well if the "edge" is against a driveway or sidewalk, not a bed. The Grass Hog string trimmer is here:

[Jay Chan]

I have one, and I don't like it.

It works. But I don't like to deal with the long extension cord. Consequently, I only use it when the edge is totally gone.

If I could start it over with, I would get an edger that uses gas.

Jay Chan