Are you concerned about small children eating leaves or berries? It is usually simplest just to train them not to put plant parts in their mouths, or if too young, keep them under supervision. Unfortunately, the vast majority of common landscape plants (and a good number of edibles as well) ARE going to be toxic to some degree or another, but toxicity will vary widely with plant and amount ingested. It is a bit easier to start with plants that will work for any given growing situation and then go through and elminate those that might pose potential danger. For standard hedging plants, that eliminates boxwood, hollies, privet, yews, laurels, mock orange, juniper, oleander and podocarpus and a number of others. You don't indicate how high a hedge plant you need, but you might consider lavender, rosemary, germander or other woody herb (all edible) or something pretty unappetizing (unless a deer or cow), like ornamental grasses. Or click on the other link ("Safe Plants") at the bottom of the UCDavis toxic plant website for additional possibilities. Here is a link that might be useful: UCDavis toxic plant listing

Looks like an Elm, Ulmus sp.

I agree with bambooo here. If one of your main complaints against the electric trimmers you have is the diameter of branches it will cut, you would be disappointed with the low-end gas models. I am not sure how the expand-it hedge trimmer attachment works, but to cut the thicker branches, you want to make sure that you have dual action cutting on the blades. The weedeater that you mentioned has one fixed blade, and one moving blade. This will limit the cutting thickness to a maximum of about 3/8". In other words, the Weedeater gas models will cut the same diameter branches that your current hedge-hogs will. If you want the larger capacity, check out Echo, Tanaka, Stihl, Shindaiwa, etc. gas models. These models will however begin at around $250. For what it is worth, I have a set of Homelite HT-22 (3/8" capacity variety) gas hedge trimmers. I really like the hand-held gas type for the ease of use and no electric cord. The 3/8" capacity is adequate for my use. The major down-side to the gas trimmers is they are significantly heavier than a set of electrics. Good luck.

Hi, I wonder how your lawn is doing now? It looks a lot like my lawn has looked in shadier areas and I mow high all the time. This year, however, I decided to fertilize the lawn to try to build up the soil. I have around 10,000sq ft and bought around 240 lbs of alfalfa pellets and spread them all over the grass with a few good quality seeds mixed in. Then I spread around 6 bags of milorganite (I know the product is controversially organic, but I'm limited by cost, availability, and ability) I have sandy loam and loamy sand and I don't water the lawn, since it costs too much in money and water... I do, however let the rain come off the roof(no gutters) and have sloped and put sheeting under the mulch to keep the moisture away from the foundation and crawl space. With the rains, and fertilizer, the grass is getting so lush and beautiful. It is beginning to go to seed, so I hesitate to cut it as it is approaching 6" and my mower cuts to 4. I'm going to cut as high as possible most of the summer. I do have a rash of plantain, however, in spots ( I hate to tell you how many hours I spent pulling it the last couple of years, and my hands are too valuable to me for other things to wear them out this way (so I'm contemplating spot treating them unless you have a better idea. (usually I chicken out and don't use chemicals.. haven't so far yet anyway)