He was waiting to be asked to mow your lawn.

Why can't you do it yourself?

Ask him if he has someone he'd recommend,.that you really liked the way it looks and appreciated having him edge it.

You had a messy overgrown yard that wasn't being kept up, and he hated having a junky looking yard next to his place, so he did it for you.

Don't be that neighbor. Edge your yard, keep the gutter clean also.

Yes you should. Go talk to him if there are issues use a translator on your phone. Tell him you want him to edge and how much is it. How long was he doing it for free? Maybe offer him something for that as a sort of apology for not talking about it sooner.

Without asking, my neighbor started edging my yard. For a long time, we did not know who was doing it. He'd do it while we were gone.

I eventually figured out he was the one and suspect he was doing it for free in order to have us like the work and start paying him.

He stopped edging the yard--which is fine!--but I liked what he did and would like to hire him....

However:

1. I feel like an idiot that I did not have this conversation with him sooner. If I ask to hire him now, it looks like I am only hiring him because he stopped.

2. There's also the challenge of the language barrier. I speak his language a little but our past conversations have been confusing to me because I'm not that great at the language.

One option is to avoid all of the above and just hire someone else, which might seem strange or rude to him.

Any advice?