Do you have a manual lawn mower?

[Readingtheworld]

Our electric lawn mower has can no longer be mended and has gone to a new life. I’d like to replace it with a manual lawn mower, but I’m not sure if it will be a lot of effort! We don’t have a big lawn area, takes 10mins to mow at the moment. Do I need big biceps and glutes and importantly will it take up less room in the shed? Have any of you got any recommendations, tips or would you say to stay away.

Do it regularly such as weekly and keep the blades sharp, keep the mower clean and oiled. If you don’t do these things it gets to be hard work very quickly. Also helps if your lawn is smooth and not bumpy.

as for size - yes they do tend to be smaller than a motorised lawn mower. But depends on how big that is - so get your tape measure out. Sizes are often given on websites such as argos/amazon so you can compare.

We have a (second hand) petrol mower, and we love it! So much easier to use than the previous electric one (Flymo, in case it matters), and cuts the lawn beautifully. As @Alphabet1spaghetti2 notes, there is probably more maintenance required, but they probably last longer too, so it pays off.

We got one and got an electric one very soon after, so that takes up even more room in the shed than just one electric one!

If the grass is even very very slightly damp it sticks to the blades and just gets chewed up and it’s impossible.

I have one because I rarely need to use one, the only lawn we have isn't actually ours, it's out in front of our boundary but the council are very very sporadic in their mowing so if left it gets really long.

If I needed to do it more often I'd have an electric one. Manuals don't handle sticks or bumps very well so you do have to make sure you've thoroughly removed even the smallest little sticks before mowing or they jam the blades.

We now have a battery powered one. It's no smaller than an electric, but no cable makes it much less faff.

I had an electric fly mower for years but it never gave a close cut. Good for long grass though.
Last summer bought a Honda Izy petrol mower. Easy and light to operate, good for small gardens and very easy to mow with. It gives a really close cut and picks up the cuttings.
It takes up more room in the garage, but I wouldn't rush back to the electric mower.
The ease of operation of the Honda is everything.

My neighbours had a manual one...they didn't keep it long, it looked ridiculously hard work and didn't do a great job!

I really love our battery mower. We got quite an expensive Bosch model - it was so much better than a corded one that I got my mum to buy a cheaper einhell one (from wickes I think) as I cut her grass for her. And this has been great too - I don’t think the battery lasts quite as long as the Bosch but she has quite a small lawn and it cuts it easily on one charge

A manual mower doesn't need big glutes and biceps. I started to use my dad's one (for quite a large lawn, for pocket money) when I was 7, and modern versions are considerably smaller and lighter than that one was. (Modern ones also tend to have the grass collector on the other side of the blade, and not be very good at collecting the cutttings.)

It does need quite a flat lawn, though, and to be done regularly. Leave it more than a week and it will be tough going.

If you decided to go for a powered version, then battery is lighter, smaller, quieter and easier than petrol, and no cable to wrangle like a normal electric..

You mean a push mower,we have a qualcast, they have been around for donkey years
Our lawn is quite big by modern standards about 100foot by 36, I do have an electric Bosch. If I keep the grass down,it's easy enough, agree it needs to be level and dry.i use in-between cuts,and on the grass verge outside our garden,it's quicker than getting out, carrying the electric one,plus the grass box and extension lead. It's smaller easily carried,takes up very little space.

Mil and neighbours have battery ones, different makes both rubbish,and expensive.

We've got a ryobi battery operated one and it's brilliant. So light it can be carried 1 handed and does a really good job.
Bonus that all our DIY tools are also ryobi so share batteries and charger.

Thank you everyone, this is really helpful. I don’t think we would get round to cutting weekly, I prefer a longer lawn anyway and grow things other then grass in it. We are also coastal and get quite a bit of rain. Interesting that so many of you mention battery operated. This is our other option. A lot of our power tools are Ryobi and this is what we would get. I think you have made up my mind for me and an electric mower it is. DH will be pleased that he was right all along!

My mum has a manual one and it's not great. It's a nightmare to get the grass collector to stay on (really important if you have even just one single weed on your lawn, as leaving grass cuttings on the lawn, leads to spreading of the weed/s all over. That's why council-maintained grass is always coated in weeds! They unsurprisingly don't collect cuttings)
Anyway, it's really hard work as you have to go over each area of grass multiple times and even more if you want it very short, although it does have different cutting heights. The blades need very regular sharpening too.

I'd say if you just have a small area of grass or say, just a patch out front next to the pavement that's meant to be maintained by the council but is rarely done, then it's perfect for that. Anymore and you'll be exhausted by the end of it.
Regardless of area though, never ever try to use one if the grass is anything but bone dry! Doesn't work

Yes, currently a garden ornament looking rusty and authentic behind the shed!

I'm going to contradict what others have said. I have a manual one on the allotment which is pretty bumpy, stony and often has sticks lying about.

It copes fine with everything but the sticks and I really don't think it is any more effort to use that our electric one at home. Less so, because there is no cable to get in the way.

The sticks ARE a pain but I find using my foot manually push the blases backwards a quarter of a turn almost almways unloks it again. It takes less than 5 seconds.

What can be a pain is that they often come with flimsy little collection boxes. This isn't an issue on the allotment because I just take it off and let the clipping fall where they will. But you might not want that in your garden - so something to be aware of.

I use a push mower for our small area of lawn. Used to have an electric one, but it took up way too much space in the shed and was such a faff to get it out and plug it in, that the lawn only got cut every 6 weeks or so. Then DH broke it anyway.

The push mower is fine. Needs doing more frequently but it’s easy so I don’t mind. Our lawn is bumpy and full of weeds since last summer’s heatwave killed off a lot of the grass, but it copes fine. I don’t bother using the collection box since I read somewhere that the clippings fertilise the soil, and we have no space for a compost heap, so it feels wasteful to throw them in the brown bin. It hates wet grass, but so did the electric one, and it doesn’t do the edges well, but I guess that’s the same for any mower.