Would this be ridiculously boujee?

[Lawncare]

So I have recently moved into a rental property that has a small back garden - all lawn. I'm not planning to stay for longer than a year or so, thus I don't feel there's much point to me putting up a shed etc as I'm guessing it would be difficult to move later. I'm thinking the grass will shortly be needing cut and I'm wondering if my best option is maybe one of the wee robot lawn mowers? I'm a lone parent with a toddler so the less time I have to spend doing grown up jobs the better, although I do love gardening I can get ds involved with.

I'm thinking space wise it would be much easier to store than a standard lawn mower as the only paved area is a narrow path and a little patch of cement used up by the bins, but I could fit a robot with cover at the side of that.

Would this be stupidly OTT. I'm not on a big budget by any means but could easily pay one off across a couple of months to avoid using savings. Or is it just a silly expense and is there a better suggestion?

Befriend your neighbours and ask them if you can borrow their lawnmower for a small consideration every couple of weeks?

How much are you talking about @Lawncare?

My neighbours all have concrete yards or artificial grass unfortunately. I'm the only one with actual grass! Otherwise this would have been ideal!

Yes, I have my eye on one myself. Do it!

Make all or part of the lawn into a meadow.
Less work, and good for the environment!

There's one that's 4.5 star rated on offer at £250 with £50 off. But I'd need to probably do a bit more research on what's well rated and value for money. If I'm spending that I need to know it will actually work well.

Because of the layout of our gardens and the car parking behind, I find bits of rubbish regularly blows into my back garden (crisp packets and sweet wrappers and small things like that left by the kids who play in that bit of driveway) and I'm wondering if that would cause issue if the robot got to it before I did. Though I'd obviously do a run around to check before.

I think my landlord might not love that as much as the bees unfortunately!!

I have this one - it's great!

It doesn't need any perimeter wires or outside electrical socket for recharging. The only issue I have found is that it leaves a narrow strip of uncut grass around the perimeter of the lawn. I usually let the grass grow a little longer around the edges and occasionally use a lightweight strimmer when it starts to look unruly..

https://www.cleva-uk.com/products/lawnmaster-drop-and-mow-robot-mower-vbrm16?variant=40578530017314&currency=GBP&aw_affid=323889&awc=20924_1775773121_735cf179b16a12b735e6f3e12a9a9980

Lidl or Aldi have a rechargeable electric mower. It’s very neat and could be kept in a plastic storage bench outside.

How about asking your landlord if he/she can provide/lend you a lawnmower? I'm sure they will want the lawn to be looked after!

I can barely get them to do repairs, they're not the best landlord! So it's unlikely!

No aldi here. Is the Lidl one only available in store or can you order from Lidl online?

Oh this is actually what I was looking at!!

Do you have an equipment library locally? Seems a waste to buy one for a rental.

If you do get a robot lawnmower don't use it in the dark - very bad for wildlife!

Oh really? I assumed it would be able to sense small animals etc that's a bit disturbing.

We do have an equipment library I can look into actually. Equally I intend to buy somewhere with a bit of a garden anyway so it would still be used even if we moved. My main issue was just that I don't want to put up a shed in my current garden to cover a lawnmower plus the space issue.

Yes do it, they are great. We’ve had one for few years now, game changer 👌 just make sure you get one that doesn’t need all the wires dug 3 inches down around the perimeter - nightmare to set up. And if you can afford it, get one that takes itself back to the charging station (so you don’t have to keep going out and bringing battery inside to charge).

I use a strimmer, my garden is about 8m X 3m, it takes me about 20 minutes.

You can hire lawnmowers, we used to when we were tenants but we did live near one of those tool rental places. A proper expensive petrol one is a dream to push around compared to the cheap plug in kind you'd buy.

If you're only there a year can you just pay someone to cut the grass?

My car is tiny so I'm not sure how I'd get it back from our local tool library is the only thing, I imagine they probably don't deliver to you... but I'll check!

This would work out more expensive than getting a robot mower to be honest after a quick bit of research.

Depending how far it is you could just push it down the road like a pram!

I thought about a Strimmer but then how do you lift the grass after? If its short I wouldn't mind leaving it (my uncle used to say it was good for it) but ds would be out playing on it and getting covered.

That's a good point thanks I didn't know they needed that! Definitely don't want to have to lay that if possible!

@brambleberries did you need to do this with the one you have?

We do our own and only really mow April to end September, but my neighbour has hers done her garden is 100ft like ours (but half as wide it's converted into two flats) , she pays £20 but that sounds like it might be a steal! She's very elderly so maybe they don't charge much.