Choosing a Lawn Mower Together So here’s how to be smart about maintaining a great lawn. 1) Don’t let the grass thirst, as most hobby gardeners will attest
Choosing a lawn mower together
Gardening is a fun and relaxing way to spend your day. Gardening relieves you of the workload and busy schedules, and distracts your attention from the news and everyday worries of life. The joy of a beautiful garden is usually focused on a bright, crisp, green and radiant spread of splendor. You can picture it: the perfect, idyllic luxury lawn.
Let’s face it, the pursuit of beauty can often be expensive, especially if you’re wrong. With that in mind, it’s worth investing the right time and energy in making the right lawn-oriented decisions. So here’s how to be smart about maintaining a great lawn.
1) Adding the right amount of water to your plant’s soil is the single most important ingredient in maintaining a healthy lawn. But knowing exactly how much water to use and how often is the subject of some controversy.
Some helpful rules that we found helpful. That’s 10 mm of water on the lawn three times a week or two inches once a week.
2) Luxurious lawn: soil fertilization. Providing a thriving chemical balance for your lawn is the next most important thing. Anxiety about fertilization. It is not just an industrial problem. Your garden is not in the wild, so it won’t be as biodiverse as it should be. Your lawn is at its most active in early summer, so fertilize accordingly. Do this three to four times a week to keep the grass smooth and lush. Be sure to use nutrient-rich fertilizers. Consider adding phosphorus in the second season and nitrogen at the end of the growing season.
3) Lawn mowers. If you are not planning to bring a squad of gardeners to your home for serious planting and maintenance, then you should mow your lawn. For the most stable and beautiful lawns, and this is especially true for those of us with large gardens, you should consider purchasing a Gardena lawn mower. Keep in mind that the lawnmower needs to be well folded and perform to high standards while still leaving room for advanced features like cruise control or hydrostatic transmission.
Once you learn how to operate the mower throughout your garden, the entire process can easily be done in the morning or at lunchtime. This makes your lawn look green and beautiful, but in fact requires very little skill. If you have a large lawn, this is the best and easiest way to keep it clean.
4) Luxurious color of the lawn. While not necessarily part of your lawn, a fresh support of daisies or a strange spike in brightness in a flower bed can really make your lawn shimmer. Flower arrangement. One of the easiest ways to add beauty to your garden. Splicing flower stalks in different areas can also create gorgeous color bursts.
Choosing a lawn mower with mulching function
When choosing a lawn mower, it is necessary to take into account a number of important parameters: its power, type of power supply, method of movement, dimensions. One of the key selection criteria is also the presence or absence of mulching function. Unfortunately, many users do not know why this function is needed and how to use it correctly. Let’s correct this omission.
What to consider when choosing a lawn mower?
The home lawn mowers on the market have a number of differences. One of the key parameters of this technique is power. In the E-Katalog descriptions and prices, you will find lawn mowers from 800 W to 4 kW and more.
If you plan to maintain a small area, a compact, non-self-propelled model is the best choice. To care for a large area, it is recommended to buy a self-propelled lawn mower.
The main task of any lawn mower is, of course, mowing. In some models, the cut grass is evenly thrown to the side, in others there is a special bag for collecting it.
Also, lawn mowers differ in the type of power supply.
- Most devices are equipped with a gasoline internal combustion engine. The advantages of gasoline lawn mowers are relatively high performance and independence from the presence of an outlet nearby. Disadvantages massiveness and high price.
- Electric lawn mowers have other advantages: low operating noise, low cost, economy and ease of use. When working with them, you will not need to regularly fill the tank and buy fuel. Electric lawn mowers have a range limited by the length of the cord, and in terms of power they are seriously inferior to gasoline models.
- The increasingly popular E-Katalog is the battery-powered, self-contained lawnmower. They are quiet, inexpensive and do not pollute the air with emissions. Like the petrol models, these mowers do not have power cables and therefore do not depend on the mains. Unfortunately, most modern cordless lawnmowers have a battery life of no more than 60 minutes.
- The cheapest lawn mowers don’t have an engine at all. Compact and lightweight units are equipped with only two wheels. To mow the lawn, the user has to push them in front of him. The cutting elements are driven by the rotation of the wheels. It is rational to use lawn mowers without an engine only for caring for small areas and then only if the quality of lawn processing does not play an important role for you.
Why mulching?
Any lawn mower is capable of keeping your garden in perfect order. But if not only the appearance of the lawn is important to you, but also the quality of the grass growing on it, we recommend choosing lawn mowers capable of mulching.
Mulching is the covering of the topsoil with crushed materials (mulch). This process became widespread in the 18th century. It should be noted that at different times of the year mulch solves different problems. In summer, it prevents the germination of weeds and enriches the soil with life-giving moisture. In the autumn, mulching is carried out to protect the topsoil from low temperatures and to wash out nutrients.
A wide range of materials are used as mulch in agriculture. However, chopped freshly cut grass is considered the most effective. This mulch both fertilizes and protects the soil.
How to use the mulching function?
The principle of operation of mulching lawn mowers is very simple. The vegetation cut by the machine is crushed to a tiny size in a special compartment and then evenly scattered over the soil. Accordingly, only lawn mowers, in the body of which the corresponding cutting mechanism is installed, are capable of turning the mowed grass into mulch. To carry out mulching, the user needs to place a plug and remove the grass catcher from the mower body.
If you are using a machine with mulching function, we recommend that you remember some of the nuances.
1. Weather matters. In high humidity, the mower uses more energy to achieve the design power than in dry weather. And a high load on the motor, as you know, accelerates the wear of equipment. Therefore, it is recommended to mulch only dry material.
2. The mulch ejected by the mower should be evenly distributed over the entire lawn area. Take care of this and don’t forget to cover hard-to-reach areas with it.
3. Mulching should not be done too often. Excessive amounts of organic fertilizer can be detrimental to your lawn.
Food type
Rechargeable. Receives energy from a built-in lithium battery. Lightweight, works almost silently, is highly maneuverable. Suitable for mowing grass in a small area. Disadvantages: relatively low power and limited operating time. Typically, the battery lasts for 4045 minutes, but some models are rated for 23 hours. There are combined models that can operate on both electricity and battery.
Petrol runs from the engine on a mixture of oil and gasoline. Differs in high autonomy, power, productivity, long time of continuous operation. The disadvantages are high noise level, unpleasant smell of exhaust gases and heavy weight. And their operational requirements are higher than those of electrical samples.
Not the cylindrical knife is wheel-driven. It does not require charging and refueling, but considerable muscular efforts and physical endurance are required. These mowers are quiet and environmentally friendly, but their performance depends on the enthusiasm of the owner.
Throwing grass
Side ejection is convenient when mowing tall grass that does not need to be removed, when rarely working on large areas. Usually these are powerful mowers with large working widths.
Rear discharge the simplest design, where the lawnmower cuts the grass and immediately throws it out behind it. This is a classic version of the ejection, but somewhat inconvenient: the grass falls under your feet.
Into the grass catcher the same rear discharge, but into a special drive. You don’t have to pick up the grass yourself, but the drive needs to be emptied periodically.
Mulching
Technology of chopping cut grass for further use as fertilizer.
Trimmers and Lawn Mowers
Trimmers and lawn mowers are portable tools for cutting grass. They are comfortable to use in difficult terrain. Trimmers, however, do not have a collector, so the cut grass must be collected by hand. For cutting the grass in such mowers, a line or discs are used. Trimmers and lawn mowers have a belt or knapsack suspension, therefore, at the time of choice, pay attention to their weight.
The electrical options are simpler, some of them do not require a shoulder rig at all, although they are less powerful and are cut in movement by the length of the electrical wire. Petrol trimmers and lawn mowers are more powerful and give freedom of maneuver, albeit heavier. The electric trimmer weighs 36 kg. Gasoline weight ranges from 5 to 12 kg.
Riders and garden tractors
Riders and garden tractors are ideal for cultivating parklands, boulevards and spacious lawns and lawns. In fact, they are just big lawn mowers. They look like simple tractors, although they differ from them in that they contain a cutting deck designed for mowing grass. For riders, it is located in front of the machine itself. In garden tractors, the cutting deck is located between the wheels, because part of the grass is crushed to contact with the blades, and, therefore, the mowing quality is reduced. In addition to all this, the garden tractor has a simple frame system. After all, the rider owns a frame that breaks when turning, part of the frame folds. This greatly reduces the turning radius. Thanks to this design, the rider will be able to cut the grass, including near the lamp post.
There are also ZTH type lawn mowers. Visually, they resemble riders, although they differ in the ability to turn on the spot. These mowers are traditionally used for large areas. The mowing quality is the highest with automatic lawn mowers. It turns out that they do not cut the grass, but cut it like scissors. Although it is advisable to use this mower only in front gardens and in small areas up to 5 acres. Also, it requires a smooth lawn and frequent mowing. Ideally, twice a week.
The future of lawn mowers belongs to robots, but even that is a matter of time. In the meantime, everything rests on the need to improve the batteries. They should be lighter, more affordable and more energy-intensive. Then it will already be possible to make a wide variety of robots for all areas. Robots mow much better than electric and gasoline lawn mowers. The main thing is to install and fix everything correctly. Then the mowing quality will already be comparable to a mechanical mower. The robotic lawnmower is significantly safer than conventional mowers. The blades are positioned far from the nose. When the robot rests on your leg, nothing will happen to you, it just turns around and goes the other way. It is possible to get hurt only when you deliberately put your hand under it, although this should not be done. Don’t forget that a garden tractor is a lawn mower. You don’t have to want to use it as an ordinary tractor. It has no springs or shock absorbers, it lacks a suspension. And if it were, the garden tractor would bounce on any bump and the lawn would come out undulating.
Mechanical drum lawn mower
Mechanical drum, or cylindrical, the most common lawn mower. It is a trolley with 2 wheel drives. It can be equipped with a grass catcher with a special hopper for collecting cut grass, although most often it has to be purchased separately. From the name it is clear that the power lawn mower does not require an energy source. Its knives are driven by the traction of the wheels. This is a good thing as this mower does not use electricity and therefore saves your maintenance budget.
Although its use requires great physical effort, especially in areas with uneven terrain. For many summer residents, this is a very important drawback, since mowing the grass then becomes a true sport.
The advantages of a mechanical lawn mower include a relatively low cost.
Electric motor power
One of the main questions when buying an electric lawn mower is which performance to choose.
Most models are equipped with 500-3000 W motors. The more powerful the engine, the faster and longer the equipment will work.
But buying a device that is too powerful is not worth it, it will consume a lot of electricity without a noticeable effect. The performance should correspond to the area of the plot and the height of the grass.
For giving a standard size (6-10 acres), a lawn mower with a 0.6-1.0 kW motor is enough. The capabilities of the same equipment will be enough to service the plots at least once a week. If the grass is rarely mowed (1-3 times per season) or the area of the plot is large enough, you should think about purchasing a lawn mower with a power of at least 1.5 kW.
Mowing options
Before choosing an electric lawn mower, it is worth learning about the recommended compliance of such a parameter as the mowing width of the plot area. The dimensions of the serviced area are related to the characteristics of the mower as follows:
- For a summer cottage with a plot of up to 500 square meters, choose a model with a mowing width of up to 40 cm;
- If the area is within 5-10 acres, the width should be 40-50 cm;
- Maintenance of a plot of 1000-2000 sq.M. Will be provided by equipment with a mowing width of 50-60 cm;
- For large areas, mowers with a strip width of 0.6-1.2 m are suitable.
The cutting height is a parameter that can be adjusted on most lawn mowers. Changing the characteristic is carried out by rearranging the axle or wheels, by pressing a lever or button. The easiest and most profitable option is manual adjustment of the cutting height. The axle is installed in another hole in the mower frame.
The electronically controlled model will cost more. Although, if the mowed grass must always be at the same level, the more important is not the method, but the limits of height adjustment.
Way to travel
Before choosing a lawn mower, you should immediately decide whether you will move it around the site yourself, or it should be able to move on its own. The first ones are distinguished by an affordable price, lighter weight and dimensions. It is easier to store and transport them, but physical effort is required to move them. Women and elderly people should not use non-self-propelled mowers.
By choosing a self-propelled version that moves independently, you can serve larger areas. Human intervention in the operation of such a device is reduced only to the task of the direction of movement.
The equipment is distinguished by relatively large dimensions, weight and price, but it is suitable for work on an area of up to 1.2 hectares and does not greatly affect operator fatigue.
In addition to two-, three- and four-wheeled lawn mowers, there are hover models. Their advantages are high maneuverability and cross-country ability on the territory with uneven terrain. But the costs for such mowers are higher than for the wheeled versions, and they are more difficult to operate, hovercraft are not in great demand and are rare. One of the few electric models of this type available for purchase in 2019, the Flymo Turbo Lite 330, with a mains supply, a 1.15 kW motor and a mowing width of 330 mm.