O/T Lawn mowers.. Sit on v remote control. Advice.

[fatboy47]

Anybody tried both? ... Interested to hear your experiences..theres nearly an acre of lawn out here... My old bones have done it for 6 years with a bog standard £80 Bosch jobbie... But its time to wind it down a bit now.

[Quickenthetempo]

Sit on mowers are great fun.

[clive40golf]

Best advice I can give for ride on is to get the best you can, Husqvana, Honda, Sthil ect. Buying the cheaper alternative can prove more expensive in the long run. I have a Husqvana mini tractor type, so you can tow a mini trailer or drag scarifying tool. Get one with handle for quick dump, and make sure it can cut in reverse as well as forward (some don’t) . I think with the size of the plot you want cutting I’d keep clear of the robot type as they only really work on smaller gardens with shorter grass ( most of them mulch the grass rather than collecting it. And as quickenthetempo has said sit on’s are great fun!. Hope that helps.

[gandhisflipflop]

Why would you want to sit on either? Just buy a settee.

[dibraidio]

I have a sit on mower, it would take about 2 1/2 hours to do an acre but I need to use a normal mower too to do the edges where the arc of the sit on mower can't get into the corners and along edges.

We're lucky over here because the grass only grows from February to May and then September until November. I don't mow it totally any more though. At the moment it's full of wild flowers and I think it would be a massive shame to deprive the bees so I just cut paths and leave more than half of it long. I'll cut it in sections so that it doesn't get too long but I try and leave plenty of flowers. I'm probably not a good example though because I like the fact that my lawn has plenty of wild leeks growing in it and I've come to the conclusion that a well kept lawn is the worse kind of mono-culture as it provides no food for us or for nature.

Of course the sit on mower doesn't pick up the cuttings, I leave them to dry and then rake them up later to use them to protect the veggie patch from the sun.

I've never had a remote control mower but if robot hoovers are anything to go by I wouldn't want one. I think an acre would be a massive challenge to a robot mower and remote controlling a mower for hours would be incredibly tedious. My concerns would be battery capacity, storage capacity and would it be intelligent enough to not just keep doing the same bits. That was my main problem with the robot hoover. It just kept missing bits.

Kids love the sit on mower. Mine were more than happy to do the lawn for a bit of pocket money.

[huw.Y.WattfromWare]

Got 14 years loyal service out of a Mountfield 1236M sit-on. Probably don’t manufacture that model anymore but I’ll recommend Mountfield.
What’s your plan for cuttings? Or are you mulching?

[Bosscat]

Best advice I can give for ride on is to get the best you can, Husqvana, Honda, Sthil ect. Buying the cheaper alternative can prove more expensive in the long run. I have a Husqvana mini tractor type, so you can tow a mini trailer or drag scarifying tool. Get one with handle for quick dump*, and make sure it can cut in reverse as well as forward (some don’t) . I think with the size of the plot you want cutting I’d keep clear of the robot type as they only really work on smaller gardens with shorter grass ( most of them mulch the grass rather than collecting it. And as quickenthetempo has said sit on’s are great fun!. Hope that helps.

*Would that not be called a sh*t on lawn mower

[BenWickes]

Ride on mowers are the way to go if you have a large garden. I lived on 3 acres of land for a year so had a large one with cuttings trailer. Molehills were a hazard but done the entire grass in a couple of hours. Trips to riverside (by it not in it) to dump full load of trimmings added time but great fun.
I also had a powered mower and strimmer for the edges.
Downgraded to just a powered mower for the next house. Minimal pushing needed. Just guiding really. Great for the steep front lawn.

[bfccrazy]

Our mower has packed in and I’ve borrowed the father in laws powered mower and it’s a dream to use compared to our old one.

Definitely picking one up in next few weeks as our new one. Our garden isn’t worth considering a ride on but big enough to make a powered one worth the investment.

[Herts Clarets]

I read of someone who had one of those robot hoovers and it was set on a timer to operate when they were out of the house. One day their dog had a rather runny accident on the carpet followed shortly by the robot hoover starting to cover the lounge carpet. And you know exactly what it covered the lounge carpet with......

[bfcjg]

One of my friends is a groundsman who swears by John Deeres, I think Balmers are the local agents.
I just pave,deck and stone over grass so much easier.

[dsr]

I read of someone who had one of those robot hoovers and it was set on a timer to operate when they were out of the house. One day their dog had a rather runny accident on the carpet followed shortly by the robot hoover starting to cover the lounge carpet. And you know exactly what it covered the lounge carpet with......

That really is a story I could have done without hearing ...

[Hipper]

You are not going to get a ride on mower at the equivalent of an '£80 Bosch'!!! Starting price new seems to be of the order of £1,000 plus.

I would look at this as an opportunity to review how you use your one acre lawn (a full size football pitch is around 1.8 acres so one acre is just over half a football pitch - not massive).

Could you leave parts of it, or prepare those parts, for wild flowers? Could you develop parts of it as shrub/tree beds? or even grow a carrot or bean! If you can you will have less to mow. Wild flower areas would need to be strimmed once a year.

You could also just get a wider pedestrian mower so requiring less walking. Of course such mowers would be more expensive (some at similar prices to the cheaper ride on mowers). You might get a used one perhaps. The widest rotary mower I know would be 33" (84cm). If you want stripes using a roller I think the biggest is 24" (60cm). Cylinder mowers can go up to 36" but are very big and heavy. They used to come with a towed seat.

If you still wish to cut the grass with a ride-on mower you need to ask if you want to remove the cuttings or let them remain on the ground. Removing them will also remove nutrients and weaken the lawn long term and you will have to find a way of disposing of them - compost heaps for example (good but more work). If leaving the cuttings will there be an issue with bringing damp cuttings into the house etc..

If letting cuttings fly my experience is that cylinder type mowers are best as they throw the grass better. They're more expensive, need more skill to keep cutting well and probably need more maintenance generally. Rotary mowers are easier to maintain, although they work best (cut keener and use least fuel) if the blades are kept sharp. However they don't throw the grass cuttings well. I've never been impressed with so called mulching mowers. These only seem to work if cutting very frequently so there aren't much grass cuttings. Rotary mowers that collect the cuttings often don't do so well on longer and particularly wet grass. The pipe often blocks up.

What you should do before buying a mower is try it out for a day, especially on long and/or wet grass, to see how it behaves. A good supplier should allow you to do this.

My employer bought Countax ride on mowers and they seemed OK and I just looked them up and they seem to have improved the way the pick up the grass cuttings - cost £5,000 or so though!:

https://www.countax.co.uk/benefit/cut-collect-system/

[TheOriginalLongsider]

If cost is a factor the middle ground is a push along mower that drives itself forward with gears so you only need to guide it rather than push it. Honda do good ones and obviously compare prices online as there can be a few hundred pounds difference between
retaillers.

Something like this: https://www.lawnmowersdirect.co.uk/prod ... -hrx426qx/

[Overthehill]

I read of someone who had one of those robot hoovers and it was set on a timer to operate when they were out of the house. One day their dog had a rather runny accident on the carpet followed shortly by the robot hoover starting to cover the lounge carpet. And you know exactly what it covered the lounge carpet with......

This actually happened to us but with dog sick! the robot hoover kept running through the pile of sick while the little side brush flicked sick up the wall!

[Tribesmen]

I would think about a robot Husqvana , now about the same price as a ride on but once it has been set up away she go's and you don't need to worry about it again ..

Now Irish prices will differ somewhat but with that much land you need to spend €3500 for a good ride on and the robot is around the same price here in Ireland .

[fatboy47]

Thanks everyone.. Plenty of food for thought....... Much appreciated.

[JohnMac]

2 goats

[Steve1956]

Wow! The boy done good,but you'd never get away with one in Rossendale.......well played Rud !

[prettygreenclaret]

Looking at buying a new petrol push mower. Anyone heard of a manufacturer called Cobra? Think they may be Chinese. Any good? A supplier local to me sells them but never heard of them before.

[huw.Y.WattfromWare]

Looking at buying a new petrol push mower. Anyone heard of a manufacturer called Cobra? Think they may be Chinese. Any good? A supplier local to me sells them but never heard of them before.

Just google.

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