Today I mowed a lawn for the first time in, oh, 20 years or so. I’m pretty sure I stopped mowing my Mom’s lawn when I went off to graduate school, since I had less and less time to go back and visit from that point forward.
I borrowed an electric corded mower from my friend Chad, who has a gardener who does his and Camille’s yard. Since it had been sitting around for a while unused, I cleaned it up this afternoon, bought a 100-foot cord, and tonight took it out for a spin (it having been maybe 2-1/2 weeks since the lawn was last mowed, around the time we closed escrow).
The two big drawbacks:
- The cord is by far the biggest pain in the ass in the process, having to swoop it around to make sure I didn’t mow over it. Fortunately, I didn’t, and I didn’t get tangled up in it either.
- The bag is small, maybe 1/3 to 1/2 the size of the bags on the mowers my Dad owned growing up. So I had to stop to empty it often.
So I bet I’ll end up buying a new mower with a larger bag. While I grew up using gas-powered mowers, I’m not too enthused about having to buy and store gas for it. So more likely I’ll get an electric battery-powered mower.
I might also need a weed whacker or other edging tool, as part of the yard is edged with large rocks. Fun fun.
All-in-all it took about an hour, but I think with no cord and a larger bag it would be faster and even pretty easy.
Still, how long do you think it’ll be before we break down and just hire a gardener?
I had no idea battery-powered lawn mowers existed.
While in theory they should work just fine (heck, I have a battery-powered _car_) I would guess most of the models out there are terrible.
I’d stay away from battery-powered gardening tools, unless you know of something that comes highly recommended. I bought a battery-powered trimmer a while ago, and it always runs out of juice before I’m done trimming our tiny back yard. Super irritating. That reminds me, I was thinking that I should check and see if it can be converted to use a cord…
I use a gas mower, but on my lot, need it. Recently saw a propane fueled mower though. You might try looking into that. Or maybe a human powered mower. (Every weekend I swear that I’m going to buy a small herd of goats…)
The joys of non-condo home owning.
@John: I thought about getting a human-powered mower. I’m still thinking. 🙂
Get a mulching mower and you don’t have to empty / dispose of the clippings. We have been in our house for 8-9 years and never had to worry about clippings.
We used a push-mower for our San Jose house. It takes less time than you’d expect, if you keep up with it every week, and your lawn is relatively flat.