Outdoor
It’s Time to Give the Push-Powered Lawn Mower a Shot
If it works for you, this old-timey contraption can be pleasant, healthy, and downright restorative.
The time to mow is upon us. Old shoes have been unearthed, AirPods are charged, Saturday mornings cleared, and people everywhere are frantically googling information about sparkplugs and the best mower fuel.
This year, try something new. I come to you singing the praises of the reel mower. Also known as a hand mower, a manual mower, or that thing on a stick dads from the 1950s walked behind while merrily chatting with neighbors. The reel mower eschews a motor entirely, cutting each blade of grass based on the strength of the person pushing it. Despite how it sounds (exhausting), I swear that it is not difficult. In these warming days of spring, I eye my little Scotts reel mower that's leaning pleasantly in the corner of the garage like a kindly ghost from a bygone era, and yearn to once again hear its pleasant snip snip snip.
I was not always like this. When I first bought my house, my brother-in-law, who owns a landscaping business, so naturally has a lot of lawn mower machine prowess, bequeathed me an extra lawn mower he had lying around: an orange, tank-like thing, ready for real work. I spent one magnificent summer walking behind it, but its maintenance was more than my postage-stamp-size yard really required. Blade sharpening, spark plug changing, and winterizing (not to mention the scream of the engine and the way it occupied garage space) all made a traditional mower seem a bit like cutting a peanut butter sandwich with a chainsaw.
I mentioned at one point to my other brother—who serves, unpaid, as my home-ownership therapist—that I had been considering switching to a reel mower. "Like this?," he texted back, sending a picture of one sitting in his garage. He offered me a temporary trade: my huge orange tank, which he wanted to tune up for fun, for his reel mower. We have quietly never traded back.
The rewards are many. The grass is healthier, each blade snipped neatly at its end rather than whacked by a merciless, spinning death machine, so it heals better. It's better for the environment than a gas-powered lawn mower—the reel mower emits zilch in terms of carbon whereas using a gas-powered lawn mower for just one hour is the environmental equivalent of driving almost 100 miles. And it's better for me. It has turned mowing my lawn into something meditative and aerobic that I can fit in neatly whenever I want, especially since it’s so quiet. The mower requires almost no maintenance, beyond a little WD-40 when the wheels start to squeak.
It's a great option for anyone with a perfectionist's eye, too. All those precision scissor cuts can create something perfectly uniform, with snips at right angles across every blade, creating a more aesthetically defined front yard. They’re frequently used to create the diamond pattern on baseball fields and to create pristine, inch-length grass on putting greens.
Despite its long list of pros, there are, of course, a few cons. Truthfully, it can be a little finicky. The mower stops dead in its tracks when a twig gets in the way. Grass will sometimes push over rather than cut, particularly if you've gone a day or two longer than you should've between trims, too. In these instances, it's best to back up and try the patch from another angle. Lastly, it’s worth being very clear that it’s unfeasible to use one for a massive yard—mine is under 2,000 square feet, making this whole thing very doable.
Think of it as the standing desk of lawn care: You're going to look a little bit pretentious, or at least precious, wheeling out your little old-timey mowing contraption. But I am here to say that all of this is worth it. It’s nice, after all, to be a little precious about your yard, to care a little more about the wellbeing of each blade of grass up there, each of its divots and thick patches. The cost investment is minimal—a brand new reel mower is roughly a third of the cost of a new gas-powered motor, and there are always a few used ones for sale online—and the upside is enormous. Every time I hear an engine roar just so someone can go beast mode on their front lawn I become more certain that I’m never going back.
To help make things a little easier, we've rounded up four reel mowers to help you tackle this mowing season.
1. Scott's 16 in. Manual Walk Behind Push Reel Lawn Mower, $199 $139
2. Fiskars StaySharp Max Reel Push Lawn Mower, $294 $209
3. 15-Inch Reel Push Mower, $55
4. American Lawn Mower 14-in 4 Reel Lawn Mower, $90 $82
Written by: Clayton Purdom
Popular on Food52
7 Comments
M
I guess some of them do like the really blowers. I have heard that many places are starting to out rules in place about them due to the excessive noise pollution.
See what other Food52 readers are saying.