Gardening this year has had it's highs and its lows...I planted ten rose bushes, 3 bare root plants, corn, tomatoes, peppers, peas, and alot of just ordinary flowers...1 of the bare roots didn't ever get any leaves...but I was hopeful about the other two

Yesterday I was trimming with the weed whacking thing...and got too close to one of the bare root tiny trees...I'm afraid I demolished it beyond belief...it is now a sad stick poking out of the ground split down the center...

lesson learned...whack further away from things I want to keep...

opps!!! i hate the weed wacker and thats one thing i have ken do. so far he has not taken out any of my flowers
this is just a accident that lets you go out and get a new tree

HAHAHAHA!!!!

IT LIVES!

Turns out I only over pruned it...it has leaves now and is comming back. YAY!!!

Weed whack, weed eat, use a string line trimmer. That kind of thing. I use a Troy Bilt gas string line trimmer now. It's one of those interchangeable types. So, it's my blower and cultivator too. It's a fine product for everything it does. I just don't want to run a gas engine every time I do the yard.

I need to trim around the house and some small beds. Edge the driveway and curb too. We had a flat shovel beat out to be one of those step edgers as a kid. It sucked. I looked at the pizza cutter on a stick at Lowes. I dunno. Maybe that one needed adjustment. It bound up when I tried to work it by hand.

But what can I use to do what a string line trimmer does that isn't a string line trimmer? Or just not have to do much of anything without looking too ragedy. Nothing here is formal garden straight and perfect but, it doesn't need to look ragedy.

What are you trying to accomplish so that people can give the best recommendation?

With my beds my hubby uses a string trimmer at the borders we have established. I keep my flowers and shrubs cut back enough that he can go in with the string trimmer without touching my plants. For smaller jobs like cutting back tall grass around my vegetable garden where the stringer trimmer is too much I use a good pair of grass sheers around the base of the plants. For areas with low lying ground cover that does sort of hang over/creep past the border I just put on a pair of garden gloves and hand pull anything that is an issue.