There is a company that makes a product called E T Air Ride. www.ztpuffer.com You mount this air ride system on your mower then mount your current seat on top of it. If you have a seat that slides you can still slide your seat. It raises your seat a few inches so you need to build some wood platform to support your body, no big deal. You hook the power side to the ignition switch so it shuts off when you shut mower off. John Deere dealer was helping me get the correct wire. I'm looking forward to using it as my tailbone is sore. Age has nothing to do with it. Lawnmower manufacturers don't want to spend the extra money to build this into their mowers.

I'm not quite clear from the pictures what you are trying to do there. I don't know the full extent of that flowerbed but it looks to me like a candidate for starting from scratch rather than trying to put an edging in post hoc. To be brutally honest it's hard to see which side of the edging is the bed. It doesn't appear to have much in it except a few shrubs, some bulbs and a lot of grass so I think I'd be tempted to dig out all the plants I wanted to save and put them aside, maybe on a tarp with soil mounded over the roots and kept moist. Then I'd thoroughly prepare the bed, by hand with a fork, not spade, removing every morsel of grass and making a good sharp edge with a spade or edging tool. At this point you could insert your artificial edging strip. Then I'd get the plants I'd removed and remove every bit of grass from the roots. Finally I'd replant in the new bed. It's a big job but I really don't think you'll ever win against the grass by picking away at it and trying to work around the plants in situ. In the long run I think it would give you a better result and save a lot of work in the future. The edge will need keeping trimmed with edging shears to stop the grass crossing the slit trench and getting back into the bed. Good luck!

Your peony grows large tubers storing the energy provided by the foliage. Removing the foliage will cut off this supply and reduce the vitality of the plant, so I would not recommend doing it. Al

Another option to consider: if you have medical insurance or medicare and a medical condition contributing to your back pain, ask your doctor for a referral to an occupational therapist for a home evaluation. We've had several over the years and recently for multiple family members and they often have great ideas and know what resources are available to make life easier, safer and healthier for you (some are better informed than others). You can also get their opinion on ideas you get from this forum and others (and we've gotten ideas from here and elsewhere they hadn't thought of, so ....). Since home ergonomics wrt to medical condition is what they are trained in, we trust their opinions on things like the depth of the sink being important versus some random person here saying it's not. It's also gone the other way -- I'll bring up a potential issue and they'll explain how to handle it by changing how we do the activity rather than spending money. They'll evaluate your actions with respect to your specific medical issues hands-on and can help you determine if changing how you use the appliance, getting an adaptive device, or buying a different appliance would be most helpful.