Hello again and thanks to all who have responded. The consensus seems to be
that a trench should be dug to separate the mulch from the lawn. The lawn
should then be edged to keep the trench clean. This should be do-able for
me. I can start small with a couple of the worst mulch beds. I have quite a
few some don't seem to have the problem.

I've seen the Black and Decker LE750 hog edger. This is an electric edger
that can supposedly dig trenches as well. It seems to go for around $89. Has
anyone used this thing and can I cut the trenches with it or should I get a
professional to do that? Maybe I'll start a new thread asking about this.

A few people mentioned using newspaper to smother the grass and then mulch.
I'll try this as well since digging the grass out is very difficult.

Thanks again for all responses.

Rick

"B & J" wrote in message
...
wrote in message
...
On Tue, 05 Aug 2003 18:01:09 GMT, "Rick"
wrote:
Hi,

I'm a novice who prefers doing almost anything besides pulling weeds
and
grass out of my mulch beds. The weeds aren't so bad since they are
sporatic
and I can easily pull them. At this point I'm more worried about the
grass
that keeps encroaching into the mulch beds.

I've been in this house for about a year. I added about 3 inches of
hardwood
mulch in the spring and plan to do this every year. It looked OK until
about
a month ago. In various places the grass is now getting into it. I
don't
have any sort of border between the mulch and grass. Should I be adding
more
mulch over the course of the year? If I bury the grass with more mulch
will
that kill it? As you know grass is very hard to pull since the roots
are
so
thick.
snip
Rick
Yeah, I'm in pretty much the same boat. I'm biting the bullet and
edging the borders using an edger, and then making a v shaped trench
about 3" across. Not sure if I'm going to install an edging material
yet. I'm dropping newspaper and then mulch on existing grass.

Swyck

I have four inch steel edging around all my beds, but I also have a
bermuda
lawn, which find that edging height a minimal challenge. Every three to
four
weeks I mix up a sprayer full of RoundUp, which I use to beat back the
invading grass. Occasionally a stray weed comes up through the mulch, but
I
pull them or spray them with RoundUp if I happen to be edging the bermuda
at
the time. This is effective when I am diligent about staying ahead of the
invading grass or weeds.

John