Mike's Backyard Nursery

The Most Fun You Can Have With Your Bibs On!

  • Home
  • Recommended Tools
  • Products
  • Categories
    • Complete Guides
    • Gardening
    • Growing
    • Landscape Design
    • Plant Care
    • Propagation
  • Contact
  • About Mike
Home » Miscellaneous » Edging a bed with a Nursery spade. Not a Shovel!

Edging a bed with a Nursery spade. Not a Shovel!

Updated : April 15, 2020

35 Comments

Gettin all fancy with your bed design.

This is the nursery spade I recommend. (Note: that’s an Amazon affiliate link.)

Questions, comments, mean things to say? Post them below and I’ll respond.

Take a gander at these posts...

  • Tree Stump Removal Instructions
  • Check Out My Billy Goat Outback Brush Cutter!
  • 37 Ways to Know You’re Addicted to Gardening
  • Hydrangeas: When do I prune them? Why didn’t they flower?
  • Pittsburgh Steelers Fans

Comments

  1. Joan A Mosley says

    April 18, 2020 at 9:37 pm

    Hey…I have one of those tools, my brother got it for me when I retired…..gotta love family who knows ya well! I love that spade . .and you do have a couple of curious donkeys there, too cute.

    Reply
  2. Johnnie Lynn says

    April 11, 2020 at 9:33 pm

    What is the name of your tool?

    Reply
    • Mike says

      April 12, 2020 at 10:00 am

      Johnnie,

      It’s simply a nursery spade. If you don’t spend at least $80 you got the wrong one.

      Reply
  3. Marty Hugo says

    April 11, 2020 at 7:09 pm

    Your video reminded me of an experience from many, many years ago. I remember sitting in a Freshman English class where the teacher loved to show us slides of her European Summer Vacation Trips with her mother. It seemed like 90% of her photos had her mother in them. For example, here is a photo of the Eiffel Tower & my mother; a bridge & my mother; an old tree and my mother. The teacher’s slides were more interesting to her then they were to the class. After about three sessions of watching her boring slides, and during the 4th session she put up a slide and announced that it was a picture of a Spanish donkey and her mother. Someone in the back of the room spoke up and loudly asked: “Which one is your mother?” That ended up being the last slide session our class got to watch.

    Reply
  4. Debbie says

    April 11, 2020 at 6:07 pm

    You made quick work out of that! Love your videos, especially when the donkeys are co staring.

    Reply
  5. Dottie Konarski says

    April 11, 2020 at 5:15 pm

    Hi Mike,

    I have that same strap problem but with lingerie. If you cross the straps in back and then buckle them to the bib, you will find that they don’t keep falling down one or both shoulders. It’s very irritating and usually happens when you have dirt all over your hands. Try it Mike. It’s a method I used on my sons’ overalls 50+ years ago and their straps never fell down their shoulders when I did this.
    Dottie

    Reply
  6. Teresa says

    April 11, 2020 at 4:45 pm

    Mike! My back hurts just watching you. Isn’t there a bent tool!

    Reply
    • Mike says

      April 11, 2020 at 5:13 pm

      Teresa,

      This is a good back stretching exercise. A bent tool and you’d lose all the leverage of the weight of the spade.

      Reply
  7. Norman E Linden says

    April 11, 2020 at 2:25 pm

    II recently moved to Arkansas, and have more weeds than grass, so if I want to start a new bed, and it has grass, I try to transplant it. My “topsoil” has the most good stuff, and I do not have to dig far to run into rocks and hard packed soil or clay. I have to get yet mostly like shade garden, and just outline my new beds with fallen logs from the woods, dig a hole for the plants, put in some store bought dirt, and cover the area with grass/leaf trimmings, . Love your video about the nursery spade, may have to get yet another tool!!

    Reply
  8. Theresa says

    April 11, 2020 at 1:41 pm

    Love the donkeys, thank you for the information.

    Reply
  9. Mara says

    April 11, 2020 at 12:36 pm

    Hi Mike,
    Please, sell me one of your small Purple ghost Japanese Maple you shown on your page. I will pay with. Credit Card. I live in New Jersey, M. Batistich

    Reply
    • Mike says

      April 11, 2020 at 5:24 pm

      Sorry Mara, I do not ship plants but our members do.

      Reply
  10. Doug says

    April 11, 2020 at 12:36 pm

    Someone has lost a LOT of weight. Great job, Mike, you’re looking really good – tanned and healthy. We’re proud for you, dude!

    Reply
    • Mike says

      April 11, 2020 at 5:24 pm

      Thanks Doug, in full disclosure I had weight loss surgery in late 2019.

      Reply
  11. PAUL SIMMONS says

    April 11, 2020 at 12:10 pm

    I THINK I KNOW WHERE TO FIND EACH OF THE ITEMS YOU SUGGEST. I WILL GET SOME OF EACH AND GET STARTED.

    Reply
  12. Robert Behlen says

    April 11, 2020 at 12:07 pm

    If only my soil was like yours. North Carolina red clay is what we deal with here. Yes it can be done but my back would not like me for weeks.
    Great video, thanks for sharing.
    Robert Behlen

    Reply
    • Mike says

      April 11, 2020 at 5:25 pm

      Robert,

      Here in north east Ohio I’ve worked in a lot more clay soil than I have sand. Really good soil is hard to come by.

      Reply
    • Allison Warfel says

      April 12, 2020 at 10:56 am

      My first Pennsylvania garden had similar issues. Brick-ready clay? Yeah. There was an actual brick factory a couple miles away.
      We found a horse farm and offered to take their manure at no charge to them. It was the best kind, in that the horses were bedding on wood shavings. Then we dug trenches and worked in the manure and shavings, mixing in the clay until it got to be a decent quality texture for gardening.
      In later years, I was not up for all that labor. So for any new beds, we laid down cardboard or cardboard-thick layers of newspaper over the untilled ground
      Over the paper layer went a 6 to 8 inch layer of that composted manure combo. I planted directly into the compost, then went about gardening as usual. The cardboard/newspaper killed weeds and grass below, and was soft enough for the garden plants’ roots to get through by the time they were big enough for that.
      I hope this information is helpful.

      Reply
      • Mike says

        April 13, 2020 at 4:45 pm

        Allison,

        This information is quite valuable, thanks for sharing.

        Reply
  13. Steven Dunn says

    April 11, 2020 at 11:10 am

    Mike I’m having trouble with a grass(es) spreading into my garden beds via rhizomes. Would making an edge like this or the one in another one of your videos help? I’m thinking of an edge some people do where there is a 3-4 inch drop off from the top of the grass to the flower bed then the flower bed is usually mounded. What people seem to suggest is a physical barrier like plastic or wood. Thing is I’m on a limited budget and have hundreds of not thousands of feet to do. So my best idea right now is to get discarded vinyl siding from a siding contractor. I would love your advice here. Also I’m wanting to stay organic because I grow my food in these places.

    Reply
    • Mike says

      April 11, 2020 at 5:33 pm

      Steven,

      The vinyl siding might work but in my experience edging materials do not stay in place very well, pop out of the ground here and there and soon it looks bad. The deep edge might help and you can spray with a vinegar solution. Some experts claim household vinegar does not work well enough, but others tell me that it does. I need to try it this summer on some areas around the donkey fence. See this https://mikesbackyardnursery.com/2019/11/organic-weed-control-an-alternative-to-chemical-herbicides/

      Reply
  14. Beckey says

    April 11, 2020 at 11:07 am

    Wow Mike – you have beautiful dirt everywhere you dig. Your video was very helpful.

    I’ve been using a little cheap half moon edger with a boot lip on it from Kmart. It’s been much better than a shovel for the reasons you described but I’m sending the hubs out for one like you’re using in the video. TODAY!

    My edged bed makes such a difference in so many ways.

    My neighbors throw piles of spendy mulch on their beds with raggedy edges and don’t know why it doesn’t look right.

    I love your information.

    Reply
    • Mike says

      April 11, 2020 at 5:44 pm

      Thank you Becky.

      Reply
  15. Dean says

    April 11, 2020 at 9:51 am

    Mike has the hamstrings of a college linebacker! Make us a video on sharpening said spade! You rock, Mike!

    Reply
    • Mike says

      April 11, 2020 at 5:47 pm

      Dean

      I don’t sharpen my spade a lot these days but when I was landscaping and using the spade to dig out stumps I needed it sharp. I carried an angle grinder on the truck but a stationary grinder is far safer to use. But if you want to really keep up with then just over the edge with a good steel file each time you use it. You really only want to sharpen the back edge of so the cutting edge is tapered on one side.

      Reply
  16. Dave Horton says

    March 21, 2020 at 2:06 pm

    Mike I like how you get the donkeys involved! obviously they love you! as alawys your nuggets of insight invaluable.

    Reply
    • Marialana Lenhart says

      April 11, 2020 at 12:36 pm

      Mike, you make it look so easy, and I know it isn’t. WTG!

      Reply
  17. Bruce Nelson says

    March 17, 2020 at 7:23 pm

    A lot of Mike’s advice is really good, but I disagree with this video.
    There may be a place for this method – where you have only shallow root grass with no weeds, and a place to compost the removed sod. Unless you have some deep holes, buried sod tends to manage to grow through, and even if the grass doesn’t other weeds that may have been in it do.
    However, it would not work anywhere I have been, because the ground is not that clean. I have dug a lot of flower beds. In every case, I edged it neatly the size it was to be. Then I went at it with a good garden fork. I went a couple of inches deep to get the grass roots and shallow weeds, and knocked all of the dirt out against the fork (I have found a fork superior to a square spade for many things) as I went. Then I go back and dig to fork depth, breaking up the soil and removing the roots that are deeper, many of which are runners that periodically send up shoots. This way I have a clean space for a flower bed without having to add soil to replace the thrown away / composted sod. If the deep roots are not cleaned out, they are almost impossible to clear the weeds once the flowers or vegetables are planted.

    Reply
    • Mike says

      March 18, 2020 at 7:42 am

      Bruce,

      I’ve landscaped about 1,000 homes, always using the method that I explain here. We’d dig out stumps when re-landscaping homes, then use the sod to fill those stump wholes. I always stood behind my work and never received complaints about grass or weeds in the beds. When possible I’d spray the sod first but that wasn’t always possible. Ideally, this should be done over time allowing the grass to die or sprout then disturbing again. However, that’s not always practical. If you leave sod in a bed then you have to turn it upside down and over it with more topsoil and a good layer of mulch. Grass cannot grow where it is not getting any sunlight.

      Reply
      • Jack says

        March 28, 2020 at 10:18 am

        Brilliant!
        Mike, the experience shows in your efficiency and conservation of motion.

        My compliments,
        Jack Altoona PA

        Reply
        • Mike says

          March 28, 2020 at 10:41 am

          Thanks Jack!

          Reply
      • Eddie says

        April 11, 2020 at 10:09 am

        Mike, I stripped relatively large areas of my lawn last summer to create large planting beds, I rented a sod stripper. It worked great. Then I rolled the loose sod like jelly rolls and used those rolls to create two crescent shaped raised beds, each 30’ long x 8-12 feet wide by 2-3’ high. Then I topped them with super loam. Eventually I planted with mostly shade perennials and bark mulched everything. Not a single blade of grass came back. Thanks,
        Eddie

        Reply
        • Mike says

          April 11, 2020 at 5:45 pm

          Eddie,

          That’s great! A sod cutter or sod stripper is a great machine as long as you have a plan and a place for dealing with all of those rolls of sod. It would be a shame and a great deal of work to just haul them away. I like the way that you were able to use them.

          Reply
      • Jack says

        April 11, 2020 at 2:25 pm

        Dear Friend,

        I’ve got several 4×8 ft raised beds that are overgrown with quack grass. It looks nasty, but earthworms love it.

        I’ve covered the beds with cardboard and will put over that several inches of compost. Then I’ll plant in the compost and let the roots go down. This is recommended by several gardening experts and makes sense to me. Thank you for your videos, Mike. It’s a wonderful resource.

        Best wishes,
        Jack Altoona PA

        Reply
        • Mike says

          April 11, 2020 at 5:20 pm

          Good luck with that Quack grass Jack!

          Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Rooted cuttings of variegated weigela in bunches to harden off.

Over Wintering Rooted Cuttings.

Posted On January 8, 2023 By Mike

Mike's Big Perennial Bed.

Mike’s Big Perennial Garden

Posted On January 8, 2023 By Mike

A Profound Thank You from Mike.

Posted On September 1, 2022 By Mike

Finnegan keeping the sun off his head.

An Old Guy, Two Donkeys, a Puppy and a Hammock. What could possibly go wrong?

Posted On July 17, 2022 By Mike

This upside down donkey is a hoot!

An Upside Down Donkey and Cute Puppy.

Posted On July 14, 2022 By Mike

'Rockin Raspberry' Bee Balm.

‘Rockin Raspberry’ Bee Balm.

Posted On June 26, 2022 By Mike

'Bubblegum Blast' Bee Balm.

‘Bubblegum Blast’ Bee Balm

Posted On June 26, 2022 By Mike

Blue Angel Hosta.

‘Blue Angel’ Hosta.

Posted On June 25, 2022 By Mike

Big Daddy Hosta.

‘Big Daddy’ Hosta

Posted On June 25, 2022 By Mike

'Humpback Whale' hosta.

‘Humpback Whale’ Hosta.

Posted On June 25, 2022 By Mike

Complete Guides

Growing, Rooting and Propagating Dappled Willow in Tree Form from Cuttings.

Growing Seeds, Winter Sowing, in Milk Jugs and Kitty Litter Jugs.

The Correct Way to Pot Rooted Cuttings, Nursery Stock Liners and other Plants.

Training Arborvitae and other Conical Evergreens to Grow with a Single Leader.

How to Propagate, Root Cuttings, of Dwarf Alberta Spruce.

Recent Posts

Blue Angel Hosta.

‘Blue Angel’ Hosta.

'Blue Angel'hosta is by far one of my favorite blue hostas. A big hosta like this in a perennial bed covers a lot of area and that keeps a ton of weeds at bay! These giant heart shaped leaves are very slug resistant. We have this plant in full sun. With … Read Full Article

Big Daddy Hosta.

‘Big Daddy’ Hosta

'Big Daddy' hosta is one of my favorite big hostas, mostly because it's big, it's blue and it has very interested leaves that are a bit dimpled. Big Daddy hosta gets about 24" tall and 36" wide. It's hardy in zones 3 through 9, the flowers are blends of … Read Full Article

'Humpback Whale' hosta.

‘Humpback Whale’ Hosta.

We sold out of 'Humpback Whale' hosta pretty early this year. Humpback Whale is pretty impressive hosta and this one really hasn't matured yet because they can get three feet high and 7 feet wide. I've also seen photos of them that show them to be a lot … Read Full Article

Ice Plant, delosperma

Ice Plant, delosperma

How pretty is that? And it's a ground hugging perennial that comes back year and year. These plants were new to our nursery last year so Pam and I planted three of them in our landscape at home. Not only did they do really well last year but they wintered … Read Full Article

Electric Red Dianthus

‘Electric Red’ Dianthus

I've been working on my perennial bed at the nursery and this Electric Red Dianthus caught my eye and was screaming "make my picture". So I did! Dianthus in general are great perennials for your garden. They are super winter hardy even here in cold … Read Full Article

Copyright © 2023 · Hill Country Digital Media, LLC · Privacy Policy · Earnings Disclaimer · Terms of Service