When my fella and I bought our house last year, we tried to make thoughtful decisions as we accessorized our new lives -- years of editing Umbra have left me with little choice. So we bought a reel mower -- completely manual, no gas, no cord, just a few blades and some sweat.
And I'm here to report: Our mower sucks. It rattles. It doesn't cut all that well. It completely misses the tall, thin weeds that have populated our lawn this spring, so that even after a fresh cut it looks like we haven't touched the thing for weeks. Honestly, I don't want to care that I have a scraggly lawn -- but I've started to feel self-conscious.
I half expect a formerly-kindly neighbor to wander over at any moment and chastise us for lawn neglect. We already had one wonder if we "couldn't afford a real mower" and confess that she had considered loaning us her gas mower out of pity.
Did we get a lousy brand, or are reel mowers just an overrated option? If I could afford a cordless electric mower, I might give that a shot. But meanwhile, we struggle with our blades -- and I have to say, I understand why people conform. When we hear the sound of gas mowers firing up throughout our neighborhood each weekend, there's a certain subconscious comfort to be found in that recognizable ritual.
Advice on mowers, reel mowing techniques, and resisting small-town lawn pressure welcome.
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Comments
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David Roberts Posted 3:17 am
30 May 2008
The long-term strategy -- for us anyway -- is to get rid of as much lawn as possible and plant drought-resistant plants where it used to be. That's because I friggin' hate mowing we love the earth.
grist.org
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KenG Posted 3:29 am
30 May 2008
You have is regularly sharpened (by a professional unless you are trained).
You have a healthy, thick, mostly grass yard.
I had great success with a yard that had rich topsoil and that I carefully fertilized and hand weeded on a regular basis. The reel mower worked like a charm.
I now have only a little lawn by the road, having gone natural on most of the property. That patch of lawn is "pasture like" and mowing it is a two step process - one pass with the reel mower to take care of the grass and one pass with a weedwhacker to take care of the rest.
Either commit yourself to intensive lawn buildup (which may or may not be possible depending on your location) or put out the cash for an electric mower. The price is coming down on the electric machines.
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Tom Philpott Posted 3:34 am
30 May 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/garden/01moss.html?em&a ...
(I refuse to hand-make links--I'm holding out for WSYGL or whatever it's called.)
DAVID BENNER hasn't watered his lawn since the Kennedy administration. He hasn't mowed it, either. And it's doing just fine. On a late-April afternoon, the two-acre property surrounding his ranch house in Bucks County was a carpet of green, uniformly lush and velvety under a canopy of shade trees.
Mr. Benner, 78, a retired professor of ornamental horticulture, is also a longtime practitioner and advocate of what he calls "the moss approach" to lawn maintenance. "Every time I give a lecture, I go into this spiel: get rid of your grass, and grow moss," he said. "And now it's finally gaining momentum."
You gotta have shade, tho'.
Victual Reality
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sunflower Posted 3:52 am
30 May 2008
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Mike M Posted 3:56 am
30 May 2008
I bought a german electric motor (Li-ion battery) assisted mower - lasted only a year or so.
Reel mowers are "appropriate technology" manageable, understandable and fixable by normal humans.
Keys are
Keep the lawnmower adjusted properly -- blades just touching the cutter bar, (it's a delicate but satisfying operation - like getting the hubs adjusted just right on a bicycle wheel). In theory you can cut a piece of newpaper -- in practice grass cuts easier. You can also buy lapping compound and resharpen blades - necessary once a year at most.
Mow frequently -- start in the spring before it really needs it. If the lawn gets away you can power through but it maybe easier to borrow or rent a conventional mower.
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sindark Posted 4:32 am
30 May 2008
a sibilant intake of breath
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Sean Casten Posted 4:34 am
30 May 2008
(Only slightly joking. We have a steep hill that can't be mowed because of the pitch but is full of various grasses. We scythe it a couple times a year, which is great exercise, if a tad feudal. And the goat idea comes up every time we start grimly reaping.)
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redwing Posted 5:08 am
30 May 2008
Go buy an edible / medicinal plants book and start labeling plants in your yard. Most of the "weeds" are edible / medicinal. Get some big stone pavers and make a path, a nice plant walk thru your yard. If you put good labels / markers people could walk your yard to learn about local plants. Put up a sign or something, so your neighbors know your not just lazy.
(certified wild back yard thru nwf: https://secure.nwf.org/backyard/certify.cfm?campaignid=WH08FWW1)
Mulch the heck out of some areas where you want to plant some fruit trees / garden. Get free pine mulch from someone with pine trees and way too many pine needles. (Trust me they will let you rake for free). Next step learn how to brew beer and wine. Final step, get drunk on your front yard : I use blackberry's, elderberry, apples, and much more for wine and I use the yarrow and hops planted in my front yard for my own beer. mmm beer (it all comes full circle).
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Biodiversivist Posted 5:19 am
30 May 2008
The cord is no big deal. I've never hit my chord in two decades. If you do, you can fix it or buy another for ten bucks.
And do what Dave says, get rid of as much lawn as possible with native ground cover. Letting your lawn grow whatever it wants works as long as you don't mind pissing off your unenlightened neighbors. Lawns are highly overrated.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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PermieWriter Posted 6:01 am
30 May 2008
Think of goats as high-powered mowers. They'll eat everything (mostly, they don't seem to like ivy), including berry brambles, the bark off your trees and all growing things down to the ground. Sheep crop things nicely (including making your trees flat-bottomed). They're the ones that made lush, green lawns popular, after all.
The key to using either is to rotate them - only let them have one bite of any particular plant, otherwise they'll kill whatever is growing there. That's fine if you want to kill a nasty stand of thistle, but probably not what you want for your lawn.
Our lawn-having best friends have had luck with a fairly powerful mower that renders the trimmings into a powder and deposits them evenly over the lawn. Instant fertilizer!
Eat what you grow, grow what you eat
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Tasermons Partner Posted 6:08 am
30 May 2008
And of course, the birds and insects will love it!
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tdmeeh Posted 8:08 am
30 May 2008
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Peter Donovan Posted 8:41 am
30 May 2008
The electric portable netting made by Premier Fence Co. and Kenlove will contain sheep and goats nicely, it's easy to move, and offers a pretty good defense against neighborhood dogs if you connect it to a good energizer.
soilcarboncoalition.org
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Hal 9000 Posted 9:03 am
30 May 2008
http://www.cleanairgardening.com/brillux33sma.html
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zach Posted 11:04 am
30 May 2008
I used to own a manual and yes, if you don't take care of it, it won't work. Much like anything else, but the difference is that it has a kind of Americana feel to it. Once you learn how.
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kmp Posted 11:12 am
30 May 2008
I wish we had that option - I rent a cottage in the country, and the landlord has a yard service that comes EVERY FRIDAY, sometime around 8:30am, and mows the yard, whether it needs it or not. Luckily, they do not put down any type of fertilizer, but I deal with the leaf-blower, tractor mower and weed-wacker noise of 5 guys roaming my yard for about 45 min every Friday. Frankly, I wish they would just let it grow for a few weeks....
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kinz1j Posted 3:40 pm
01 Jun 2008
From what I can tell, any grass or weed that is higher than the midpoint of the rotating blades can be pushed down rather than cut. Also, the wheels tend to push the grass down under them, which sometimes leaves them too low for cutting.
This is what I do to get an acceptable-looking lawn. First, I cut the lawn twice, once in one direction, then perpendicular to the first cut. Cutting in a different direction seems to catch a lot of grass that was missed the first time.
Second, I make sure that the blades are adjusted to cut properly and are sharp. The rattling you report doesn't sound good at all--the Scotts has held up quite well without any rattling. There are sharpening kits available that involve putting paste on the blades and turning the blades backwards--they work fairly well.
Third, if the grass has grown too long, and espcially if there are tall weeds, I get out my gas-powered mower. Sometimes that is the only thing that will get the job done in a reasonable amount of time.
Fourth, I accept that my lawn will never be billiard-table flat like a gas-powered mower lawn
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birdboy Posted 11:00 am
03 Jun 2008
beware the tiny twig-
though it be not so big,
it'll stop you in your tracks.
a liberal in redsville
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