Please give a novice some advice about lawn mowers and soggy grass.

[miramar]

I've just moved and have a garden, which is great, but I need a lawn mower now. Please advise on what might suit. I haven't mown a lawn for about 30 years. Also I may need some drainage.

I have a rectangular patch of lawn which is about 6m wide x 10m long , and has a slight decline of maybe 20-30cm along the 10m length. (Higher at the house, lower at the far fence.) There is another patch of grass which is maybe 10sq m and is an awkward shape and not level. There are a lot of dandelions in the lawn and the lower quarter/third is soggy. The rest of the garden and other grass in the area (shared areas and the upper part of my lawn) is dry.

I like the idea of a push mower (nostalgia and having a toddler) but am not sure if my non-level lawn is suitable.

Also can I do anything about the dandelions? And the soggy section?

[Ferguson]

That sounds like quite a large area to mow with a push mower!

The cylinder mower (which 'push' is) can give the best finish of cut.

Electric rotary mowers are OK though, but the Flymo 'floating' sort don't really float quite as lightly as the adverts imply.

So a wheeled rotary is probably easier, particularly if the grass is long, and there are slopes and the damp area. We have a Wolf wheeled one; all Wolf tools certainly are not the cheapest, but they are versatile and reliable, and I have used a lot of them.

Whatever sort you get, make sure it has a container to collect the cuttings; some 'compact' the cuttings into a smaller volume, but I don't know how well that works. Also a range of cutting heights that are easy to adjust is useful, at least three I would suggest.

A manual lawn rake is useful to rake up debris, and I used to rake BEFORE mowing to stand the grass up. Wolf do a wheeled 'scarifier' (which has VERY sharp points on its blades) which is useful once or twice a year to get 'thatch' out of a lawn.

If you have a mains electric mower it MUST be protected at the wall socket with a RCD safety cut-out, in case the cable gets cut, protects against electric shock!

Dandelions: a lawn 'weed & feed' fertiliser will get rid of them eventually, but it may take some time. There are 'gadgets' you can screw into the ground to pull them out, but that is quite had work, and needs a 'T' handle, and Wolf do those.

Soggy area: spiking with a large fork may help, or you can get 'hollow tine' aerators to take out plugs of soil. Then brush in peat or sand might help.

SAFETY: with a toddler, make sure he cannot get at tools, electricity, or chemicals.

Hope you make some progress!

[LadyGardenersQuestionTime]

I swear by my bosch electric mower with a rechargeable battery - really light and easy to use and bliss having no cord to mow over. Push mower sounds lovely but in reality much more hard work than necessary.

When you say soggy how soggy do you mean? Grass won't grow for long somewhere really soggy.

[miramar]

Thanks for your messages, that's what I need to know about products and technique. When looking at push mowers they say "suitable for small to medium areas" without giving a guide in feet or inches. I thought a push mower or cordless type would be better with the toddler than having a cable (for safety and him wanting to unplug things). If you think I'd find a push mower hard work I'll look into cordless ones. I was looking at the Rotak 32 cordless last night, amazon are selling it for £300 which seems a lot but I'd rather buy the right thing than waste £100 on something I'm not happy with.


I think the soggy area is that way partly because of the downward slope from the house toward the bottom of the garden, and partly because the previous family had children's swings there so the ground could be compacted. I will try to improve the drainage there myself.

I do enjoy gardening (I've helped others who have plants but no grass) but don't know much about it. I'd appreciate recommendations of books or websites to get guidance from.

Thanks again.

[TalkinPeace]

I have a push mower :
my main lawn is 10m by 5m then the little lawn is 5m by 5m and another lawn is a few metres square and I cut the grass at the front

no limitations on distance from the house
no limitations on mowing in the wet
no engine noise
the blades stop turning the instant the wheels do (so the kids can mow for me)
being a barrel mower its actually quicker than my old hover mower, let alone my old petrol mountfield

www.husqvarna.com/uk/products/lawn-mowers/64/
I'd recommend it to ANYBODY

[miramar]

Thanks for your message. Do you use a grass collector with it? I'd have to carry it down a couple of steps so would like to know how unwieldy it is.

[TalkinPeace]

I use the grass collector - which is just a canvas bag type thing - its not heavy to move around and if storage space is tricky, the handle folds down
It does a beautiful job