Learn how golf courses kill grass at trees, fences and pavement to end string trimming. Covers mulch rings, edge strips and safe spraying.
Jack · golf course superintendent·9 min read·October 15, 2026
It's a Saturday in October. The mowing is done, and you still have the string trimmer in your hand, walking the fence, circling each tree and following the driveway edge, breathing two-stroke exhaust for another forty minutes. Golf courses don't do that. On a course, we got rid of the grass at the obstacle so nobody had to trim it. That means a ring with no grass around each tree, a hard bare line along pavement and fence, and in a few cases something to slow the grass where the mower can't reach. These are three methods, not one product.
A golf course has acres to cut, so a superintendent goes after hand labor first. On my course we killed the grass in a ring about a foot around every tree, about 300 of them, so nobody had to weed-eat. We did the same along the fence lines, around the buildings and around the parking lot. Benches, trash cans and ball washers sat on pavement, so nobody had to move them to mow. Everything was set up so a riding mower could reach it, and hand mowing and weed-eating dropped to a bare minimum.
Golfers never noticed. Their ball isn't sitting against a tree, and they're looking at the green and the fairway. Your neighbors won't notice either.
The lesson I took from it: the easiest grass to maintain is the grass you don't have to cut.
There are three ways to do it:
The first one has the strongest university backing, so that's where to start.
String trimmers hurt trees, and the damage is worse than most people think. Purdue's forestry extension says bark on young, smooth-barked trees like maples and birches can be less than 1/16 inch thick. A trimmer line goes through that in a second. LSU AgCenter calls monofilament trimmers very damaging to young trees.
The damage adds up. North Dakota State says trees generally heal when bark damage covers 25% or less of the trunk's circumference. Both NDSU and Purdue say damage that goes all the way around the base will ultimately kill the tree. One careless pass a week, every week, all summer, is how a tree gets girdled.
The fix is to have no grass at the trunk. On the course our rings were about a foot, which was enough to keep trimmers away. For a yard tree, the extension numbers call for more:
These sources don't agree exactly, so I'd use about 3 inches of mulch, go as wide as you can stand, and keep a hand's width of bare ground at the trunk. That gap matters going into winter. NDSU warns that mulch piled against the trunk can cause stem rot and attract voles that chew bark, and K-State calls for the gap for air, water and rot prevention.
Purdue's prevention list matches what courses do. Remove the turf at the base, or kill it with a herbicide used according to the label. Put down a mulch ring. Add trunk guards on young trees. Fall, before the leaves come down, is a good time to lay out rings so they're in place before spring mowing starts.
The grass that creeps over a driveway or walk is the next trimming job to get rid of. Courses do this along cart paths with herbicide instead of a trimmer.
A USGA Green Section case study from Mission Valley Golf and Country Club describes chemical edging of gravel cart paths with glyphosate. The crew used a single-nozzle, solenoid-controlled sprayer with a shroud, mounted on a utility cart. Before that, edging had taken three staff close to 100 labor hours. The same study gives the warning that matters most: unless the herbicide goes on with extreme precision, there's serious risk of damaging the turf next to the path. Ohio State's David Gardner has noted that glyphosate is used regularly on courses along hard surfaces and in ornamental beds, so this is routine practice. It still takes care.
To do this at home along a driveway:
You end up with a clean, narrow bare line the mower wheel rides along, and the trimmer stays in the garage.
A fence line is the same problem as a driveway edge: a narrow strip of grass the mower deck can't reach. On the course we kept a bare strip under the fence so the riding mowers could run right along it, and nobody trimmed it.
At home, there are two ways to do it:
Most university fact sheets don't cover fence lines specifically, so this section is course practice, not an extension recommendation. The rules from the pavement section still apply: shield the spray, work on calm days, and follow the label. One glyphosate label accepted by the EPA allows use around the base of established trees and shrubs at least 6 months old, and it also says not to spray plants you want to keep. Labels vary by product. If a vine or shrub is growing through your fence, it's a plant you want to keep, so keep the spray off its leaves and stems. If your fence sits on the property line, talk to your neighbor before spraying.
Superintendents use plant growth regulators all the time. The common one is trinexapac-ethyl, which slows leaf growth by blocking the plant's production of gibberellic acid. That makes it tempting for the strips you can't get rid of.
Keep your expectations modest:
For most homeowners it's an extra, not the fix. If you try it, the label sets the rate and the timing.
Here's the whole routine:
Someone always asks why we didn't just mulch around the trees. Two reasons. First, mulch around 300 trees costs money and labor, and it has to be topped up every year. Out on the course those trees sit in play, too. Mulch would have traded one maintenance job for another. A one-foot ring of bare ground cost us almost nothing to keep up.
Second, a pile of wood chips smothering the base of a tree isn't good for the tree. You've seen the ones piled a foot or more high around the trunk. If you do mulch at home, keep it thin and flat, and keep it off the bark.
Skip the mulch volcano, the cone of mulch piled up against the trunk. It's the opposite of the 3-inch gap every source calls for, and it invites rot and voles. Use a wide, flat ring that stays off the bark.
Photo by 12019 on Pixabay.
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