I've been checking a cross selection of lawn mowers so you can discover the finer points here, before you cut the grass.

ON THIS GREEN:

Fine Lawns Small Lawns Long Grass & Roughs Large Lawn Area Uneven Surface Difficult Turns & Edges Sloping Site Embankments Comfort Features Remote Sites & Mobile Gardening Maintenance & Storage Side-Wheeled & Reel Mowers Rotary Mowers Mulch / Recycler Mowers Hover Mowers Compact Reel Mowers Cylinder Mowers for fine lawns Driving Power Mowing Large Lawns End Of Lawn Rough

CLOSE UP ON LAWNS
Lower down the page I look at lawn mowers from a gardening job perspective. Go to my page on grass cutting to find how to mow.

PRACTICALITIES - WHAT YOU NEED TO MOW

• Longer grass, rougher areas click Rotary Mowers,
• Sloping, narrow or curving areas and edges click Hover Mowers.
• Compact Side-Wheeled Reel Mowers and for fine ornamental lawns click Cylinder Mowers

Lawn mowers combine age-old design with innovation.

Rotary Lawn Mowers

This is the heavy duty option capable of dealing with rough, clearing the surface of weeds like thistles, nettles, docks, and razing to the ground of woody brambles and saplings without getting tangled. A suitably powerful motor is needed for the tougher jobs. Of course, it does the grass too.

If you’re in the habit of throwing leaves and weeds onto the lawn to be mown and shredded for bagging with the lawn cuttings then you’ll probably already use a rotary mower.

The height adjustable rotating blade is carried by 4 side-wheels, or 2 wheels and a rear roller. This single blade cutting system is easy to maintain compared to cylinder lawn mowers. But they tend to shred rather than cleanly cut. This can open the grass to disease.

4 wheeled mowers won't stripe the lawn and may leave tracks in some conditions. This is temporary, but the problem may be reduced by making a shorter cut. Also, 4 wheels usually run straighter but turning is harder - it involves lifting the front wheels.

The Gardena rotary mower has a stearing wheel to turn the front wheels. The control handle pivots on the machine so, when turning, you don't have to swing out behind the machine - you walk easily along the mowed track. Check them out here:- click to view details on the Gardena Easimove 14" Rotary Mower or the Gardena 15" Easimove Rotary Mower

Rear rollers are now replacing 4 wheeled models. These can curl the grass for a stripe effect.
Rotary Mowers with rear roller

Mulch or Recycler Mowers and Mulch Kits

These are growing in popularity and now appear under most brand names. The rotary blades are modified to shred the grass very finely and deposit the fragments back on the lawn. These break down quickly to feed the lawn and save on additional fertilizer by recycling nutrients.

Most mulch mowers have an option to collect grass straight into the grass box when needed. This is useful for early and late season cuts when temperatures are low, and when you want to bag the cuttings for use as mulch.

Hover Lawn Mowers

These are most ideally suited to larger utility lawns and uneven lawns, with difficult turns and spaces and sloping sites and embankments.

The smallest hover lawn mowers are not able to collect grass cuttings. Qualcast calculate that extra weight of grass collecting bags requires heavier motors making the machine less efficient all around. The Qualcast hover mower is ideal for what a hover does best: slopes, awkward turns and spaces. The control handle pivots so, when turning, you don't have to swing out behind the machine - you walk easily behind to follow any curving mowed track.

Models with a collection box may compress the grass cuttings and reduce the frequency of grass box emptying.

You can adjust cutting height on many hovers but it’s less precise compared to adjustment on other designs. In my experience, hover mowers are not good at tackling very short grass on fine lawns. For one thing, grass is somewhat flattened by the airflow (bear this in mind with advertised 1cm min. cutting heights - too low if taken on face value and no use for the dry Southern States).

Some hover lawn mowers have a single metal blade like a rotary mower. Others have light plastic blades that are replaceable and sold in packs.

A severe problem can arise in U.K. with mossy lawns when the tough springy so called ‘fly-mow moss’ Rhtydiadelphus squarrosus is pushed down beneath the blade while the grass gets cut. The result is that moss overpowers the grass.

Hover mowers share some attributes of rotary mowers: they may contribute more to vacuuming excess debris from a fine lawn surface; and they make a circular cut that doesn’t align or stripe the nap. Unlike rotary mowers they can't be used to mix and bag leaves with grass cuttings.
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Compact Reel Lawn Mowers with Side-Wheels and Rear Grass Box

Manual push and powered versions are available. With no front roller to flatten grass before the blades arrive, and sometimes fewer cutting blades, these machines cope with grass that's a little longer. Blades, cutting systems: - self-sharpening, contact free & replaceable blades, described under cylinder mowers below.

COMPACT DESIGN
The rear grass box position in dead space between gardener and cutting system, and single rear roller make these designs very compact. They cut front-on almost right up to an edge - side wheels precede blades by a few inches - no worries about lawn-hedge, lawn-wall or lawn-tall flower boundaries in awkward corners.

The rear rollers steady a side-wheeled machine when running along a grass edge with one wheel over. They also control cutting height.

MORE ON BLADES AND GRASS BOX POSITION
This obvious advantage is tempered by some complaints. The compact design causes excessive rocking on uneven surfaces. This can throw grass forward from the box onto the rear roller. Also the grass flume is sometimes thrown to one side. This is due to the slanted blade surface; there's no deflector plate when grass flumes to the rear.

The collection bag on the Gardena reel mower (sold seperately) runs wide on one side partly to eliminate this problem, but also because it is designed to fit several different mowers. This makes it combersome on the small Gardena reel mower. However many gardeners don't bother with a collection bag at all.

The Gardena reel mowers have a silent contact free cutting system.

In another configuration I've seen, V cylinder blades slant from both sides to the centre.

SIDE WHEELS
Side wheels provide excellent traction. The extra torque is transferred through gears to increase cylinder rotation relative to travel. This improves quality of the finish. Mowers with sealed bearings aren't troubled by hoseing down the machine.

Some gardeners report that side-wheels leave tracks, but only under certain conditions and for a short time.

Avoid old style mower handles especially on push mowers. They were easy to make; uncomfortable to use. Gripping handles bends wrist & adds strain to arm & elbows. Hold both hands out in front & make a fist. Your natural posture holds a left to right horizontal bar (or 2 vertical bars). Some modern ergonomic handles mix both horizontal and vertical holds.

Some organic gardeners believe that fine lawns are unsuitable - indeed they're more exposed to drought and require more fertilizer. But you can't help admire them and organic fish blood and bone will help keep them green and healthy.

Cylinder or Reel Lawn Mowers With Rollers

This is a traditional design and the best choice to cut high quality fine lawns.

THE BLADES
The moving blades are fixed along a spiral-shaped curve around the cylinder (or reel). This rotates above a fixed blade and a clean scissor-like cut moves across the machine (Compare with rotary blades; these shred grass.)

Actually there are gaps between successive scissor cuts. So cylinder/reel lawn mowers that travel too rapidly, or have slow blade turning or too few cutting blades (e.g. 4), may produce ripples of uncut grass - visible to close examination. Popular cylinder mowers are configured with 5 or 6 blades that are either powered independantly of travel, or with geared up rotation.

For running balls smoothly on bowling or croquet greens, a uniform grass surface is achieved with 10, 12 or more blades - and these fine lawns look beautiful. Frequent cutting is important too.

The ATCO 'Balmoral' (petrol/gas power) & 'Windsor' (electric) ranges can be easily converted from 6 to 10 blade lawn mowers with the QX cassette. The ATCO 'Club' has 12 blades as standard. Click image to see Lawn Mowers accessories e.g. QX Cassette For the best deal compare the above links with these:-
Petrol Cylinder Mowers	Electric Cylinder Mowers

Powered cylinder mowers may drive the blades independently of travel and make a fine finish with fewer blades. The 4 blade Qualcast Concorde has been a popular bottom range machine. Yet don't be rushed; my best results only come by pushing it slowly and steadily.
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BLADE SHARPENING

It's hard to compare lawn mowers when dealers are partisan. They may offer spare-parts, machine or garden services and favour rotary machines because they're popular.

Most mower blades are made of tempered steel and fairly soft - compare contact free blades below. A 5 year guarantee is normal. Relatively low priced side-wheeled push mowers are effectively becoming 'throw away' machines. When the blade is worn a new machine costs only a little more than sharpening. But contrary to some opinion, most Qualcast blades can indeed be sharpened. Moreover, the better Atco/Qualcast mowers have removable cylinder/blade cassettes for this reason.

Never file blades as this puts grooves into the surface and damages any hardened layer. Always sharpen with a grindstone. Backlapping is a sharpening technique involving reverse rotation with a grinding paste. Some Atco machines turn the blades independently to make backlapping easy.

Self-sharpening is a technology used by Al-Ko. There is a faint contact between cylinder blades, and the fixed blade which must be harder. It requires occasional slight adjustment to bring the blades on as they wear back.

Contact free blades are used by Gardena, Brill and others. The relatively silent action reduces friction and wear, and they're easier to push. In theory you could set up any mower to be contact free but the blades on the Brill side-wheeled mower are also flame hardened for longer life.

Wolf have opted for replaceable blades and the cylinder / reel is merely a blade holder. With this system you continually buy and fit new blades, instead of sharpening.

ROLLERS
Traditional cylinder lawn mowers travel on rollers. A light roller precedes the blades and is adjusted to set the cutting height. Behind is a larger roller. This bends the cut grass to give the familiar stripe effect. Differential rollers i.e. 2 rollers side by side, allow lawn mowers to turn more easily. Ridged rollers give better traction on slippy damp grass and on slopes.

COMBS
A row of vertical bars behind the front roller comb the grass into an upright stand in preparation for cutting. They are found on top-class Atco cylinder mowers and other professional lawn mowers.

GRASS THROW
After cylinder blades cut the grass they sweep the cuttings back. Behind, a deflector plate turns the grass / air flume over the top of the cylinder and forward into the grass box. The Atco machines have parallel vanes on the deflector to reduce turbulance and channel a powerful air stream. (Compare Side Wheeled mowers.)

SIDE-WHEEL ADAPTATION
Cylinder mowers are usually limited to use on short fine lawns. Yet a further modification in some Atco mowers and others, adds side-wheels. This raises the lawn mower and enables cutting of longer grass - great for organic gardeners who appreciate fine lawns but sometimes need longer grass too. These side-wheels also permit travel over hard rough surfaces without damage to the rollers.

Atco / Qualcast bring the professional mowing technlogy to the domestic gardener.

The Lawn Mower Challenge

• Fine Lawn
• Cylinder mowers are best
• 5, 6 cutting blades rather than 3 or 4
• Low cutting height - down to 1.3cm / 0.5 inches
• Ergonomically positioned handle bars
• Self-sharpening blades
• Roller gives a lawn nap with stripe effect
• Small lawn, quiet neighbourhood
• Hand push mowers
• If selecting a powered mower choose non powered travel
• Narrower cutting width is more manoeuvrable in small spaces and, lighter and easier to push
• Rear grass collection boxes allow mowing close to edge
• Roughs or long grass
• Rotary mowers are the first choice
• Check the maximum cutting height
• Hover mowers can tackle utility lawns and slightly longer grass but not very long rough or tussocky stuff
• Powered travel a definite advantage
• Large lawn area
• Power mowers available with powered travel
• Ride-on machines for very large areas
• Wider cutting blade
• Larger collection box, high cuttings compression ratio
• Mulch mowers recycle direct to lawn and avoid grass collection
• Petrol driven - more gutsy, avoids long and trailing cables
• also – wheel barrow with side extensions for grass collection
• Uneven surface
• Use hover mower – the other lawn mowers will scalp humps and miss the hollows
• A smaller model with narrow cutting width may be useful
• Difficult turns, spaces, and edges
• Hover mowers can be manouvered into difficult spaces - the handle on the small Qualcast hover pivots to allow easy turning.
• Rotary lawn mowers are large and hard to manouver - but click to check the exceptional Gardena Easimove Rotary . A stearing wheel controls front wheels and pivots on the machine so, when turning, you don't swing out behind machine - you walk easily along the mowed track.
• Sloping site
• Use powered travel
• 4 side-wheels run straighter lines to traverse or ascend
• Hover mowers for going down slope
• Embankments
• Hover mowers when pushing down slopes - specification may limit to not greater than 45^O
• Hover mowers allow a sweeping action on slopes (don’t strain your back sweeping heavy machines - on level sites they should go in a straight line)
• Small light mowers are preferable
• Comfort features also useful to retired or disabled gardeners
• Ergonomic handles
• Non powered travel is more controllable
• Ride-on machines for large areas
• Large grass collecting boxes, high cuttings compression ratio, or mulching capability saves grass emptying trips
• Easy cutting height adjustment levers
• Light weight alloy frames and polypropylene rollers
• Battery powered lawn mowers for small lawns but they can’t be stored where there's no power source to recharge - but see this Robotic Mower
• Robotic Mower with open air docking and charging station as well as perimeter navigation cables
• Mobile gardening or remote sites
• For power lawn mowers choose petrol or gas driven
• Maintenance, storage space and cost
• Petrol / gas driven requires more maintenance but is probably a better investment for a heavy duty machine

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LARGE LAWNS
A useful tip is to strategically place a wheel barrow along the side of the lawn. This cuts out a longer walk to empty the grass box on a more distant grass heap. With larger lawns a barrow extension will hold even more grass. As you progress, wheel the barrow to the next stop. Strategic placing of Tip Bags is another alternative.

SCYTHE

STRIMMER

DRIVING POWER
If you have a small tidy lawn you're probably better off with a push mower. I prefer them whenever possible. Power machines are disturbing. A peaceful afternoon is broken first by one then another... the sound reverberating off house walls. Sometimes the neighbourhood sounds like an aerodrome at weekends.

That said there are practical situations where power is a must - a large lawn, rough grass, or grass on slopes. Plus, if you're not used to the excercise, or suffer heart problems, then pushing a lawn mower may add excessive strain, even over a small area.

COMPARING POWER SOURCES
With electric mains power you are tied to the power source and a cable must extend and trail to the machine. There's a danger of cable damage so ensure (U.K.) domestic wiring complies with BS EN 61008 with a residual current circuit breaker for safety.

Battery power is also an option for working small and perhaps not so small areas. However the machine has to be either stored near a power source to recharge, or have a removeable battery to charge indoors - great! Some models have outside docking stations for recharging.

Petrol engines are more gutsy. Independance from electric power gives you mobility and you can work in the field. Nowadays petrol engines are made lighter so they are also worth considering for hedge trimmers and the like.

Petrol engines are often (incorrectly) considered unreliable. A good tip is to give the engine a couple of runs during the winter. Certainly they require more maintenance (batteries, plugs...) but when this is done regularly you shouldn’t have any problems at all.

With some power machines the gardener pushes and the motor only drives the blades. For small gardens and some individual requirements this arrangement is more controllable.

The alternative is powered travel. This is ideal to tackle large areas, slopes and roughs.

INTO THE ROUGH - more information and links on growing lawns

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