Choosing The Right Mower

Choosing the right mower is an important decision seeing that the average home owner spends about 35 hours per season mowing there yards.

It may well be, that the mower you are using now may not necessarily be the right one for the job.

Lawn mowers come in two types-rotary & Reel.

Reel Mowers

Reel mowers have been around the longest. It is not the most popular in recent years with most people replacing for rotary type mowers.

Reel mowers are mostly used by people with smaller yards (usually 30m2 or less).

Some good facts about the reel mowers are they are quite and non polluting and virtually free to run. Most people believe that they provide a better quality cut from the scissor type action that they produce.

They are also very light in weight. Reel mowers come in a variety of blade patterns but for general lawn cutting a 5 blade pattern would be the best choice.

A lot of couch lawn owners prefer to use the reel type mowers as they feel they get a much better “carpet look” to their lawn.

Rotary Mowers

Rotary mowers were introduced in the 1950’s. The advantages of the rotary mower are that you get a much faster cut. You can adjust the height at which the lawn is to be mowed quickly and with ease. It is also much easier to cut lawns at a higher height with rotary type mowers.

All rotary mowers use power to make them operate. Usually it is electricity or gasoline (petrol). Rotary mowers are either push, self propelled, walk behind or sit down (ride-on mowers).

The blades are normally 18” to 24”, with the ride on mowers which are normally 36”.

Ride on mowers are a great choice for people with large yards (over 200m2). If you use a ride on mower in a small yard you will find you will go over areas twice or three times, are you will be unable to get into smaller corners.

The most important thing to remember when cutting your lawn with any mower is to have the blades nice and sharp.

Edges

To cut a lawn where it meets an edge such as a pathway or fence etc, you will need to use a trimmer or edger. You can find these at very reasonable prices at your local hardware store or lawn mower store. They give a nice, tidy finish to your lawn and they are very easy to use.