This is a continuation of the discussion that started here:
In my experience, few things are satisfying as a lawn mowed and the moment after when you can sit down and watch the sun set over your lack of lawn care responsibility for another week (or so).
If nothing else, this is a place to share your lawns! I mean, most of us are old enough we probably own a house or are responsible for maintaining some sort of lawn, somewhere, let’s talk tips, tricks, and suggestions and or just bitch about how hot it is.
I’m not super into it as a hobby per se (that’s my way of saying I don’t want to show a picture of my already-yellowing grass, when it is still June). But I bought an electric battery lawn mower, trimmer, and blower with a bit of worry about their power and capability. I’m super happy with it. It’s powerful, easy to use, light, no gas, the trimmer is great, the blower is a bit weak but more than good enough for my use, heck I use the air stream to dry my car and bike when I wash them.
I have a small yard so I got a Ryobi 16-inch mower kit from Home Depot. Larger yards may need more.
I got a 20 inch greenworks electric mower. Sadly, it can only do about 3/5 of the yard on the two batteries it came with. 1/2 if the yard is wet.
Since I work from home and need the exercise, I am hoping to start a new routing Monday. Do about half the yard in the morning before I go to work. If I mow 3-4 times a week (30-45 minutes tops), it should give me a bit of a work out and keep the yard in order, and keep my weekend free. It should also keep me from mowing in the middle of the day.
Thanks! It seemed like a good thing when the kids were little, but other than a few swings I used to hang off the tree there and the fire pit, we almost never use it for anything. The land I own behind the shed takes about 20 minutes to mow all by itself and except when I mow it, I never use it for anything. But the “block” I live on is actually 4 blocks merged into one super square so all of us on this block have huge back lawns. No complaints though, keeps us from having neighbors too close to us.
That’s two of you with battyer powered mowers, which I think is a great thing. My boss is looking to get one as well, actually. I’m considering getting a Reel mower from the other thread (and my cousin talking about his over the years) because while I wouldn’t abandon the Honda push mower, I’d love the option to just listen to a podcast or some music at a reasonable volume level while pushing something like that around on a gorgeous day. I’m on the hook for keeping a buddy of mine’s lawn mowed while he’s in Europe the next three weeks, and his yard is smaller than mine and I’m tempted to see if my wife will let me get a Reel Mower to mow his lawn with, then I can use it on mine now and then too.
@legowarrior Your plan seems like a sound one to me. I get the best workouts in the mornings myself, so I’d heartily on board with doing some mowing each morning several times a week. Just remember to take a day off or two during each week and stay hydrated, even in the mornings.
I have an electric mower too. I can do the whole yard if the grass isn’t too tall. If it is I need to charge again. Either way is ok.
I love the electric mower. It’s quiet so I can mow early if I want and my arm doesn’t fall off from yanking the starter cord a dozen times, nor do I fear it stalling and needing a restart. I have the option of getting the trimmer and blower too that work off the same battery, but I don’t really need them.
I leave the trimmings where they fall because that’s the lazy person’s way.
My wife and I bought a house about a year and a half ago, and this summer is the first one where I’m seriously fighting the good fight against the weeds occupying what ought to be our lawn. The real pain right now is the broadleaf plantain, which has thus far been resistant to the chemical warfare we’re heaping upon it.
As far as lawn mowers go, I’m happy with my 20-year-old gasser—it’s the same self-propelled push mower I grew up mowing my parents’ lawn with, so it fits me like a glove, even if it’s terrible in a number of objective ways compared to either a modern electric or gas-powered push mower.
I just bought an Ego electric mower this weekend after my Briggs & Stratton inexplicably stopped starting again (cleaned the carb and all that.) It is a pure delight to operate. It does my yard in about 75% of the charge so I should have some margin when the battery degrades.
My backyard’s a mess. It has maybe three different kinds of grass growing and also a lot of clover. We really need to just take up what’s there and sod it. We don’t like to use chemicals on it because we have a dog and cat and we worry about them being exposed to whatever we use.
OTOH, I don’t care that much that it doesn’t look uniform. It’s all green. When it’s freshly mowed it’s all the same length. Good enough for me. It makes the GF frown at times, though.
You people and your fancy electric mowers, I have a Deere riding mower I bought in 2015 , it reduced my push mow time from 2 hours a week to 25 minutes of riding, and 5 minutes of push mowing.
I’d love one, honestly - your’s looks amazing to me - and as I get older and older I’ll probably need to invest in one at some point. My father in law has my son and daughter mowing his acreage and he has two very nice zero-point turn mowers, and I got to use one a few summers back when I helped the kids mow one day and I honestly had a freaking blast doing it. So much fun. Those things fly. But for now I look at mowing as a good reason to get some exercise, some fresh air, and get caught up on my podcasts.
Yeah its not bad when the yard is flat. But push mowing in 90 degree heat with 95% humidity , and having to go uphill both ways was never fun. Or as least as I recall it.
Who decided lawns should be grass? We have so many other options that don’t need to be mowed and stay greener all year long like green carpet (herniaria rupturewort), creeping thyme, blue star creeper, bird’s foot trefoil, mazus, to name just a few.
Look at this beautiful grass carpet (not to be confused with not alive astroturf stuff people use in CA and AZ):
My wife and I have had the ‘clover’ debate. I was winning by default (as “getting rid” of the clover requires effort), but I also knew I was on the right side of biology.
Clover was in every lawn when I was a kid, but then people started using a lot of broadleaf herbicides to get rid of dandelions, plantain, etc but killed off all the clover, too. So people became accustomed to expecting a grass-only lawn.
