Edging Around Trees The Easy Way

Edging around trees and flower beds easily, using a simple edger and no power tools!

Recently, I’ve been working on cleaning and prepping the yard for summer. It’s a lot of work but mostly stuff I like doing. For creating a landscape edging around trees, I was planning on letting my landscaper do that. But I got impatient waiting because I wanted to get the mulching done so I decided to try it myself.

You guys, it was so easy! If you need to create a garden border of any kind, here’s how to do it.

This is what I started with.

edging around trees - how to - flower bed edging

We have this side of the yard lined with emerald green arborvitaes. It had been edged before, but it hadn’t been done in several years and there wasn’t any definition between where the tree line ends and the grass begins.

Garden Edging Tool

My plan was to use a straight edge shovel to make the garden edging. But when I went in the shed to get it, I found this edger I forgot I had that was perfect. It’s like a shovel but it’s an edger.

The bottom part is shorter than a shovel and has two areas that are bent, which is perfect for standing on to break through the ground.

Before you begin with the edger, you should plan it out first. Whether you want it curved or straight, you can mark it out using spray paint to help keep you on track. You can also use a garden hose. Because mine had been done before, I didn’t use either. I followed where the grass ended.

How To Edge Garden

Start by pushing your edger into the ground where you want the garden border to start. If you’re ground it tough or if there are roots, stand on the edges to help get it down. Push straight down and then remove it.

Next, you’ll need to flip the edger around and do it again the opposite way. You’re creating a divet that you’ll scoop out.

Once I did that, I used the edger to scoop up the inside of the divet.

I tossed the scooped-out parts off to the side and went back at the end and cleaned those up. Even though I hit some roots, this little edger did all the work. Because of the short length of the tool (as opposed to a shovel head), it made it easy to get the divet the same depth all along the edge.

garden edge with shovel and edging around trees

It’s like a little moat all along the tree line. This will help keep the mulch on the tree side and give the grass a nice finish. Clearly, the grass needs some work. I haven’t gotten to that yet.

Edging this whole line of trees took me less than an hour. Once I finished that, I added fresh black mulch and that was it. Dramatic difference!