I use a string trimmer (a.k.a. weed-eater) to trim everything that my mower can't reach. That includes driveways, sidewalks, flower beds, around fixed objects, you name it. As for how to trim around the flower beds, the edging should be at least as tall as the grass. Then turn the trimmer at an angle (the string about 45 degrees to the ground and let the string lightly make contact with the edging. This will trim the grass neatly for you. Of course this will take a little practice. Most everyone that I know does it this way. Much easier that cutting it by hand.

I gave my husband the trenching job. We gave up on the black rubber edging. Bricks IÂd like but until I start doing it myself, it wonÂt happen. Our main bed is a big raised one with landscape blocks, I think I burned him out on that one 4 years ago. (We didnÂt install the blocks ourselves but did everything else including move and replant all the perennials.) We have been doing the trenched edge for all the other beds. The one problem I have with that is that it seems to get wider each year. I never seem to be there when heÂs doing it, so I donÂt know if this is what normally happens. It seems like to get a clean cut he has to move back a few inches into the lawn. I find myself with a new bare area around the perimeter of each bed, that then I feel needs filling. Considering IÂd already installed edging plants, IÂd rather not. He does the edges twice a year, in between I go in and pull out any grass or weeds that seed or jump in. I just bought a proper half moon edger, before that he used a small shovel. Will that make a difference? Or is it part of what happens with this system, that the bed gets gradually wider?

I don't have any blue eyed intros from this year or last. What is your goal for such daylilies? Do you just want to grow a blue-eyed daylily, or do you want it as a hybridizing parent. So many factors affect daylily color. Most of the so-called blue-eyed daylilies look very blue in my hot, humid climate. But they don't look blue in the cooler parts of the U.S. like the Pacific Northwest. These are some I have with blue-lavender or blue eyes that look blue to me: Asian Fairy Bluebird Cerulean Warbler Ada May Musick Violet Tranquility Bobby Martin Jitterbug Blues Mrs. John Cooper Texas Blue Eyes I would take the recommendation of someone who lives in your part of the world before parting with big bucks. Debra

You'll never guess what I use as edging around my heavily mulched garden beds all around my yard. I will say that the primary mulch I use IN the beds is ground up leaves. In some places I put down newspapers under the leaves. For the borders, though, since I had a readily available source of wood mulch, I have created all around the edges of all my garden beds a wood mulch berm, maybe 8 to 10 inches tall and wide. For the most part, the grass stays on the outside, and the ground leaves stay on the inside - and they can be stacked in there. In more cultivated areas, the soil and compost, as well as rotted down leaf mulch, that has been incorporated into the soil has build up the level of soil, but it has been easy keeping the grass out. I've occasionally had some issues with old Bermuda grass trying to poke its way through the wood mulch berm, but I've found even Bermuda grass is easier to deal with in a heavy mulch - it can be pulled out. Everything stays looking clean and neat, and in my maybe annual trips to replenish wood mulch by the truck load, I just move a wheelbarrow full along adding a small amount all along the top of the mulch berm.