Your robot mower does a great job. But there's one thing it physically cannot do — and it's the first thing visitors notice. I hear it at least once a week from Belgian homeowners: "Olivier, my robot mows beautifully, but the edges along the fence look terrible." Nothing is wrong. It's not your robot. It's physics — and I have a solution.
I Get This Question Every Single Week
It usually arrives as a WhatsApp message with a photo attached. There it is: a beautifully mowed lawn in the centre, and a ragged strip of long grass running the full length of the fence. Fifteen centimetres of untamed grass at the edge of an otherwise perfect garden.
The homeowner thinks something is broken. I have to explain that the robot is working exactly as designed.
Why Every Robot Mower Leaves a Fringe
Every robot mower on the market — Segway Navimow, Husqvarna Automower, Worx Landroid, all of them — has its cutting blades set back from the outer edge of the chassis. This is a deliberate safety feature. If the blades extended to the full edge of the body, they would constantly clash against fence posts, walls, garden borders, and decorative stones.
The result is a strip of uncut grass, typically 10 to 25 centimetres wide, running all the way around your garden's perimeter. Along the fence. Under the hedge. Beside the shed. In the open areas, your lawn looks immaculate. At the edges, it looks completely untouched.
In most Belgian gardens I visit, this is the number one frustration once the novelty of the robot has worn off.
What About the New Edge-Mowing Models in 2026?
In 2026, several manufacturers have started tackling this with new hardware. Worx Landroid introduced an asymmetrical cutting deck that pushes the blades closer to one side. Husqvarna's Automower EdgeCut function uses a rear blade disc to trim closer to hard boundaries. These are genuine improvements — I've been following them closely.
But they work best against flat, hard surfaces like a terrace, a paving slab, or a tile border. For the typical Belgian garden — wooden fencing, hedge bases, raised flower beds, decorative edging — you still need a trimmer pass afterwards. Even the best models still leave a 4 to 8 centimetre strip along hard edges. For a truly finished look, that's simply not enough.
The Most Important Tip I Give Every Robot Mower Customer
This is where I started noticing a pattern. The customers who were most satisfied with their robot mower — the ones who sent me before-and-after photos, who referred us to their neighbours unprompted — had one thing in common. They weren't doing the edge trimming themselves.
The single most effective thing you can do to make your robot mower investment look its best is this: don't underestimate the edges.
A perfectly mowed lawn with ragged, overgrown fringe edges looks worse than a garden that hasn't been touched at all. The contrast draws the eye immediately. It's the first thing visitors notice when they walk up to your house. Sharp, clean edges tell the whole story — they signal a garden that's looked after.
What I Do — Twice a Month
This gap is exactly why I created the Lawn Edge Care Carefree subscription. The concept is simple: I come to your garden twice a month and take care of everything your robot mower physically cannot reach.
During each visit, I:
- Trim all edges with a professional grass trimmer — along fences, walls, hedge bases, decorative borders, and raised beds
- Blow all clippings off hard surfaces: the terrace, the path, the driveway
- Do a quick visual inspection of your robot mower while I am there
A visit typically takes 20 to 40 minutes depending on garden size. You do not need to be home. I work quietly, I leave nothing behind, and the result is a garden that looks genuinely finished — not just mostly done.
One of my customers near Ghent has a Navimow i108e she commissioned last spring. After a few months with the edge care subscription, her neighbour knocked on the door to ask who her gardener was. The robot handles 95% of the mowing. I do the 5% that makes the whole garden look like something from a magazine.
Is Buying a Trimmer Not Cheaper?
On paper, yes — a decent electric trimmer costs between €60 and €120. But then you need to charge it, store it, maintain it, and actually use it every two weeks. On a Saturday morning. When you would rather be doing something else.
If you already invested in a robot mower, you bought it precisely so you would not spend your weekends on the lawn. Adding a trimmer to the mix defeats the purpose entirely.
The Lawn Edge Care Carefree subscription for a 500–999m² garden costs €49.99 per month — roughly €25 per visit. For most Belgian homeowners I work with, that calculation resolves itself very quickly.
Who Is This Service For?
If you already have a robot mower and you care about how your garden looks end-to-end, this service is built for you. It also pairs naturally with my Robot Mower Selection & Installation service — many of my customers in Belgium add edge care from day one, so the entire lawn is covered from the moment their Navimow starts running.
And if your robot is due for its annual check — blade replacement, software update, seasonal service — that is covered under my Robot Mower Service Carefree package.
Ready for a Garden That Looks Perfect — End to End?
Your robot mower does the heavy lifting. Let me handle the part it cannot reach. Together, we make your garden look exactly how it should — every two weeks, without you ever thinking about it.
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