Are manual lawn mowers any good?

[shelldockley]

We only have a tiny lawn and used to have someone mow it for us but now we need to do it ourselves and get a lawn mower. Has anyone got any experience with manual hand push mowers? Can you use them when the lawn is damp?

www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/gardeningequipment/10119264/The-best-push-mowers-in-pics.html

I think this tallies reasonably well with what Which magazine said.

Basically the more expensive the better.

I would def have one for a tiny lawn, but I am a fit 60+ year old. I have a horrible, heavy, noisy Honda motor mower for my big lawn area, it is cumbersome and hard to push to where it's needed, would love to replace it but the lawn is too big.

Great for small lawns. It's light, easy to transport and there's no faffing with cables and fuel. It's also environmentally friendly. Ours doesn't mind damp grass but is not very good with very long grass.

Hth

I have a Bosh one, which I am very pleased with. It is better for keeping grass short rather than tackling long grass- I find that if I let the grass get too long I have to go over it a couple of times , and use a leaf take to unflatten the grass between each pass.

I had a cheap one from B&Q before that and it was rubbish.

*Bosch

We have one.Our last house had such a small lawn that it was all we could use on it really. I felt it did a better job than electric hover movers especially as our lawn was quite bumpy (more like a field).

Its good exercise too.

Ours was the most basic one you could get with no grass collector but we had a big wide rake to gather up the cuttings and it worked well. It was especially good not to have a grass box because we had a teeny tiny shed and was very limited on storage space as well.

I've just bought the basic rotary mower from homebase (£30 ish) and it's great for a small lawn. 8yo ds did the whole garden in 10 minutes.

no bloody circuit breakers and extension leads to dig out from the cupboard anymore. no more blades to run out of. I think we only need to oil it, get the blades sharpened every so often.

you have to watch out for stones and sticks getting jammed in the blades, but they're easily dislodged by an adult with a poky stick.

Thanks for the replies and excellent reviews! Do you need to clean the grass off the blades before storing? Any other maintenance tips? Am thinking no collection box and just a wide rake would be a good option

Um, I didn't clean the blades just shoved it back in the shed.Probably would have been a good idea . In my defence the dc's were starting to fight over who could keep on mowing so I put it away before it got out of hand.

Fair enough! I'm thinking if the grass is slightly damp it might lead to the blades rusting?

I give mine a perfunctory brush down when I have finished using it, but it doesn't take much to knock the grass off. I also don't bother with a collection box and just rake up the cut grass. If you mow regularly so the cuttings are very short you can leave them on the grass to self-fertilise the lawn.

I bought one today, funnily enough!
The £30 ish homebase one.
Very pleased with it but the grass collector on the back was hopeless so I raked up after myself.

I've got one, but I don't find it's very good at all. it's good at flattening the grass, rather than cutting it, but maybe it's not a good make, seeing as other people's reviews are positive.

rambunctious that generally happens when the grass is a bit too long for the mower, it has to be quite short already... ours is to 'keep on top of it' rather than first cut after the winter iygwim

i have a cheap b&q one for a medium size lawn and I love it. Its not a perfect finish, but its a garden not a bowling green. Quick, quiet and a sense of satisfaction using it.

Ah! Er, yes, Bishop, lawn-mowing is certainly not my strongest suit, so maybe you have a point there .
In which case, shell, feel free to completely ignore my comment!

My neighbour borrowed today and she loved it.

I think it's going to be perfect for quick weekly maintenance and all gentle upper body workout.

I'd recommend the 38 cm Qualcast from Argos at £36 it is fantastic. The box works well and felt more sturdy than the b&q version. Makes a nice noise and the nice strips too.

We bought one last year - lawn isn't huge and takes less time to mow it than to untangle and plug in the electric mower!

I did a lot of research before I bought it, and the one that had the best reviews, from various sites was the Wolf. It is not too heavy, easy to adjust to different heights, and does a really good job.

I didn't know Wolf did a 'push' one, but we have their electric, and I find Wolf tools about the best for many garden tasks.

I've had a Qualcast panther for 10 years - so easy, light. Not a big fan of long grass and leaves those long stalks but apart from that it's wonderful. Never cleaned it, just put it away - though I do think it could do with a little tlc and a service! Every year I get it out of the shed, Push it, it refuses to move, grumbles a bit on its stiff arthritic joints then gets on with it! It's fine now. And I assembled it myself

Ferguson
DH is German, so we always buy German tools, and the Wolf tools are very good. We have a lot of the range where you can swap the handles.

We had an electric mower in our last house, but not worth it for the little lawn here.

I LOVE mine and my lawn area is quite big (50 feet long for one, 20 feet long for another, the other two are 10 feet long, each is about 20 feet wide)

It does a beautiful job and is quicker than my old hover mower
its 5 years old and its just great
its also lovely to be able to work quietly well out of reach of an electric socket

www.husqvarna.com/uk/products/lawn-mowers/64/964954003/

No, they are not good. I have one to get rid off of, please contact me if you want it