Last night I was reminded of one of my least favorite gardening chores (yes, it's a chore) ... trimming! ... as in trimming the grass around all the hardscape in the yard. The term hardscape refers to any non-living garden materials used in construction of your "landscape," i.e.: pavers, retaining walls, patios, decks, gravel paths, boulders, arbors, gazebos, etc.

Anyway, to keep your landscape looking neat, after mowing you need to "trim" all the grass that grows close to the hardscape that the mower misses. So, if you're like me and have plenty of gardening beds that are rimmed with retaining walls, various stones, or even vinyl edging, resign yourself to the fact that you need to invest in a decent electric, battery-operated or even gas trimmer. It's definitely worth it. Trimming by hand can take lots of time, whereas, putting out the money now can mean cleaning up your landscape in only minutes. Mine takes about 20-30 minutes, which is bearable, I guess.

I happen to have a battery-operated Black & Decker trimmer which is nice because there's no cord to worry about. The gas powered trimmers are even better (and more expensive), but with the skyrocketing price of gas, I don't know if you want to go that way. Electric trimmers work well, but as I mentioned above, you do have to worry about lugging that extension cord around.

If you go the battery-operated route, I do recommend purchasing a second battery, the charge doesn't last long enough on one battery to do my whole yard. So it's nice to have two, so you can charge one while using the other. There's nothing more disappointing when performing this chore than running out of juice half way thru the task. Then having to wait another day to charge the battery and finish the job.

Up next, I'll be blogging about the durable Dianthus and why this is a must have for every garden in our area!