Weed wacker - extending string life

[jyoutz]

Grass ain't that tough!

Each spring, I run a bed definer around each of my flower beds, which total nearly an acre. Probably something close to 2000 linear feet of edging. I follow this with the string trimmer on the "mulch" side of that edging, blasting out all the little tufts of grass that have crossed the line from lawn into garden, and simultaneously breaking up and scattering all the edger waste into the garden, before scattering fresh mulch into the gardens. During the few weekends that takes, I will go thru a lot of trimmer line, reloading several times in just a few weeks.

But then I can go the rest of the season with reloading probably less than once per month, since I'm only cutting grass, weeds, and raspberry shoots with the stuff, not trees!

My weeds must be tougher. Also trimming around a steel edging or concrete foundation eats string.

 

[WinterDeere]

About 1300 of feet of my trimming is against stone walls (house built 1700's), and then I have another 60 or 100 feet along a concrete walkway, but all the rest is just mulch gardens.

I can control head hold-off distance well enough on pointed stone walls I do every week to not eat string, but I do have about 600 feet of loose rubble and dry-stacked stone walls, which is where I eat the most string. I only trim those areas every 3rd week, or thereabouts, which is usually when I ended up needing to change line.

 

[fatjay]

It's not the plastic I am worried about, it's the small rocks and thorns that hit my shoes while using the trimmer that make me wear boots, even with the shield on.

I've learned not to flinch when stuff hits me doing my welding in flip flops. Hot embers hitting my feet, legs, arms, and shoulders used to make me flinch. Sure there are going to be some burns but they're pretty small and don't last.