Sorry to hear about your shoulder surgery too, DTD. I'm sure you will make a lot of progress with PT and hopefully be ready for the gardening season in the spring. Sounds like you picked the right time to have your surgery and recovery. :-) I was just looking over this thread again. This year, we are thinking along the line Bill is thinking tooâ¦lol My husband does all the shoveling lately but this year he's dealing with Tendonitis on his elbow and even using the electric shovel, is problematic. It has to be lifted and moved often enough to become a problem when your arm is not 100%. And even the adaptations for shovels for ergonomics don't seem to be workable. So as much as I enjoy the snow, we're really glad we haven't had much of it so far too.

I use a buried plastic edging and a line of bricks or patio block just inside the edging that the mower wheels can run on so we don't have to edge. While I love the look of the cut edging, DH mows the lawn and he vetoed it since he finds the mower wheels tend to drop down into the cut. If I filled it with mulch like mayflowers, my grass would be into the garden quite quickly, so it may depend on your soil and grass. Here is a new garden I was in the process of creating when I took the photo. You can see the edging and the patio block. By now (and by a few weeks after the photo was taken) the buried plastic edging is hidden by the grass and the patio block isn't particularly visible since plants tend to spill over onto it. I find that unless I am right next to the garden, the edging isn't visible; it usually takes a bit of searching for me to find a photo where the edging actually shows.

you can find three pics here https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/4802979/i-stopped-chemical-fertilizing-but-now-something-seems-missing#n=71 the purpose of having these cold season plants in a bed is to inject a steady stream of sugars in the soil. these feed mycorrhizal networks, myc. for short, and the network releases minerals from the soil into a form that can be absorbed by the plants. the biggest killer of myc. is keeping beds fallow (over the winter). so in my opinion a plant producing sugars when other plants are not growing has a fertilizing effect, effectively maintaining the network over the winter. New plants will connect to it and exchange nutrients through it. I do not have perennials in my beds but generally I tolerate weeds late in season for the purpose of overwintering whatever biology I have in Fall. I only add nitrogen to my garden. I appreciate that regular mulches save more water than green mulches, but green mulches provide other services. So do flowers and herbs in a cottage garden, in a similar manner. In my opinion, it is not competition if plants do their growing at different times of the year. quite the contrary, they collaborate in maintaining the network that feeds them.

https://egopowerplus.com/multi-head-power-head/?gclsrc=aw.ds&&gclid=Cj0KCQjwgo_5BRDuARIsADDEntT85HCkia_rQGT25-rBfbByexSKijfGiPMGcNn3AEbEbZAuiE-n4dgaAuekEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds Like this? That's kind of what I use, I just use a Toro string edger. If it's this model, they do have an edging attachment, I think, but the string trimmer will actually do a decent job all by itself. Yes, you can do straight edges, but it really does take some practice. Use a two-handed hold, and go slow at first. Don't dig too deeply or you'll go through string like mad. For the first few times, expect a ragged edge until you get your grip and motion correct! With these, you can even make fairly sharp corners, too. A rolling edger with the teeth is what my mom uses, and she likes that, but I find the things tedious and slow.