This piece on garden fences was written by freelance contributor Sally Perkins.

Cutting the Lawn Without Destroying the Fence

Manicured lawns are beautiful and desirable, but are not always easy to obtain. Making them look nice requires a lot of work, and some extra knowledge. Grass grows fast, especially during the rainy months, so keeping it at bay is often a weekly chore. You’ll need to mow the lawn often, and you’ll need to manicure the areas around the fence. The lawn mower simply cannot get the blades of grass closest to the fence. When you’ve got a great fence to preserve, you don’t want to ruin it with dangerous lawn mower blades.

Start with a Trimmer

Use a weed eater with a line, not a blade, to trim the edges near the fence. The line weed eater will be easier and cheaper to repair than the blade version, if it accidentally hits the fence. You’ll need to trim the grass near the fence without touching it to avoid damage. Use the trimmer a half inch away from the fence post. If it is possible, shorten the bottom of the fence posts by three inches to allow the trimmer to reach underneath the fence. If this is not possible, consider aluminum tips to protect the fence against the trimmer. When trimming around a chain link fence, time and patience work best. Carefully trim between each fence portion to clean away the grass.

Consider a New Garden

Think about using mulch around the bottom of the fence posts to reduce the amount of growing grass. This is why many people include flowers at the bottom of a fence. Flowers such as marigolds or daisies look wonderful around a fence, as do small garden statues to help reduce grass growth. If flowers are out of the question, however, placing a small ring of mulch around each fence post will go unnoticed among a larger yard. Simply apply a circle of mulch a half inch thick around the posts to hold back grass growth and reduce fence damage. You’ll be able to control the lines around the fence post, and, if done properly, you’ll be able to mow without worrying about the fence line. One thing to keep in mind though, is to always change the lawn mower blades, when they get dull. Having sharp blades will naturally ensure perfectly trimmed grass.

Trimming the edges before mowing the lawn leaves cleaner lines. Using mulch or planting gardens around fence posts reduces grass growth. Using a gentle, line-fed trimmer helps keep the lawn looking evenly kept. Using these general tips helps maintain a beautiful yard without damaging the fence.

Here are the rest of our stories from WamBam Fence’s first Helping Hands Program!

Andrew:

“I took the money and, adding some of my own to it, bought groceries. I donated the groceries to Cooperative Christian Ministries in Concord, NC. They help families and homeless that are in need.”

Chris:

“I donated my money to The Prevent Cancer Foundation. I’ve lost two grandparents to cancer, and The Prevent Cancer Foundation has become my charity of choice since losing them. They’re a charity that focuses on improving technology for prevention and early detection of cancers.”

Linda:

“I have a neighbor and friend in need.  She made a comment that she and her son have a game to see if they can only spend $50 a week on groceries and smiled because they were successful.  Broke my heart.  She cried when I gave her the check.  I also gave her a gift card to the grocery store and a few gifts for the kids.”

Paul:

“A friend of mine told me about a charity where you can donate money to local military families in need. I donated the money to a local Military family of 6. I added some of my own money to help them out.  I wanted to give them a nice Christmas.”

Last week we told the story of our new Helping Hands program. Our employees did some great things with the money they donated, and we’ll be telling those stories in this post as well as one other post next week!

Karen: 

“Our helping hands money was donated to an associate of my husband, who he has worked with for a few years.  He was struggling with a lot of bills due to personal issues and was concerned about not being able to provide Christmas gifts for his children. He was blown away with the gesture and extremely thankful for generosity.”

Tonya:

“I donated the money to the Joe Martin ALS Organization.  It is a local charity in Charlotte that helps families and patients that have been affected by ALS. Specifically, I asked that the money donated be used towards “Joe’s Camp”.  During my mom’s struggle with ALS, the Joe Martin Foundation provided critical caregiving, financial support, and equipment to my mom and our family.  I was ecstatic to be able to give back to them and show them how grateful I was for all that they did for my mom and our family in our time of need.”

Kevin:

“Mine when straight to my church. Every year they do a huge “Giving to Christ at Christmas” offering.  This goes above and beyond our typical weekly offering.  Every penny that is donated goes directly into the local community to support food banks, Christian mission partners and aiding people in paying bills who suddenly find that they can’t.  Some of it also goes toward our worldwide mission partners which fully funds an orphanage in Argentina, halfway houses in the Philippines for girls rescued from sex trafficking and churches being planted in India.  The main goal is to help the “least and the lost” of the world…children.”

WamBam Fence is a company that likes to help out those in need, and with 2017 being such a great year for the company, we knew we had to give something back. During one of our team lunches, the idea arose to take the money the company was going to donate to a charity and do something more personal with it.  We asked each employee, “Is there someone you know that can benefit from a donation?  It could be a family, friend or a special charity that you believe in.  We will split the donation equally among all of you and you can donate it in your name”.  Our employees at WamBam are some of the most caring individuals we know, and they loved the idea!  So, we weren’t surprised at the level of thought and excitement they put into the program. The best part was that the employees got to see how their donation helped people in need.  Some employees even added their own money to the donation to help even further! Over the next few weeks, we will be posting the stories of these donations to this blog, so stay tuned for the stories of WamBam Fence’s first “Helping Hands” Program!

The WamBam Team