Electric Mower
 

I'm beginning the process of moving into a house, and that means I now have a lawn. It may be a postage stamp, but it still needs mowing.

My dad doesn't spend money often, but when he does, he's impulsive, giving little thought to it. He decided to buy a battery powered push mower for me.

It was dusk before I got around to cutting the grass last night. I fired the thing up, which is like turning on a box fan as far as noise goes. The mower has headlights which actually came in handy. I put the deck on the highest setting since the grass was about 8" tall. The motor adjusts output and blade speed depending on the load put on it. The whole thing weighs 45 lbs and feels like you're pushing nothing. It was the most satisfying mow I've ever done.

A reel mower would have been fine, but I'm not complaining about my dad's gift.

https://cc831cbd7a5a3a616f82-5093119...dda9e82f4e.jpg

Now what to do with the boring backyard? I'm thinking it has too much gravel, and I might take out the crushed rock and extend the grass, putting stepping stones in for the path. I'm happy to hear all suggestions of what to plant, particularly along the fence, or how to make the backyard more appealing.

I would get one that plugs into 120v power.
I used a 120v mower from 2006 to about 2017.
No battery to replace.

Yeah, that was always my thought, especially if there's no trees to navigate.

Personally I was going to either get a reel mower, or a robot mower (the extremes in price). After that, corded seemed like my next choice.

Very happy with this though, and I can use it at my other house with a larger yard and trees. Currently have the neighbor kid mowing for $10. Perhaps other 40v tools will appeal to me too.

I've bought into the Ryobi line of 18v brushless tools and have been happy with them, though I'm a light user.

Glad to see you liked it. I have looked at their 40v trimmer to replace our ryobi gas trimmer. I really like the power of the gas, it's an older 31cc model not the newer "low emissions" 29cc. But, it has no adjustment for the carb and the fuel lines leak. I don't have enough property to need the gas version.

Can't speak to the 40v trimmer, but after today should be able to say something about an 18v one.

I've got months of my life on gas powered ones from the huge property I grew up on, plus working on the chain gang, so I have plenty of opinions on what works well and what doesn't.

I just recently bought a Worx 20V trimmer, and I love it. While coming with only one battery is kinda lame, it was only $40 (and replacement batteries are 50 a crack). I like that these are "Power Share" batteries: they have the usual run of 20V tools, but they also have some tools (including a lawnmower) that you just put two batteries in and it's a 40V system. I would consider getting the mower too but I just bought a new craftsman gas mower with a bagger. I was shocked to see that the mower is OHV, I didn't know that was a thing.

I have a fair bit of grass I mow with very little trimming, so a gas mower makes sense, but my gas trimmers always got gummed up and just sucked in general.

I was thinking I'd have preferred a mower that uses my existing 18v batteries in series to produce something approaching 40v. That's an extra charger on my workbench now. My guess is Ryobi wanted to take the possibility of the 2 battery packs being at different states of health out of the equation by combining it into a single pack. That, and more profit selling a different battery. Their whole marketing though is that all their tools use the share the same battery connector so there is always backwards and forwards compatibility.

I confuse easily. Yard ≠ lawn?

I'm impressed by your ability to find difference, as I hadn't noticed or intended to use different terminology.

Perhaps I consider a lawn to be a nicely maintained section of grass, whereas my yard in Vancouver is a weed-ridden combination of moss, grass, weeds, and clover.

Vancouver yard is a bit bigger with trees to navigate, but the silverton lawn is small with no obstacles.

[The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 1 characters.]

Interesting timing...I finally got my hands on a Ryobi 40v "Expand-it" power-head - used, for cheap, been looking for a long while now - to use with my previously gas-powered attachments.

I didn't think it would have the oomph to run my leaf blow attachment - even the gas power head has to work hard to spin it - but it ran it just as hard with out a hiccough...and no screwing around to get it started! They came out with a newer, supposedly more efficient (brushless, perhaps) version this year, which is presumably better.

Nice to hear a review on the mower. Between yours and the results with the power-head, I would actually consider getting a 40v mower. If I ever took up mowing again, rather than having a (landscaper) neighbour do it (cheap). Then again, I still have my 48V lead-acid mower (which had crappy run time with any acceptable level of power) and a 48V lithium battery on my ebike...yeah, ok, I won't be buying a Ryobi 40V one until I find a used one for cheap, but hey, I'll add it to my searches.

Oh, and you could run it off of 2 "18V" ryobi batteries, if you wanted to go through the effort...there's exactly half as many cells in series inside the 40v battery as the 18v battery. 18 + 18 ≠ 40? Well, it would, if Ryobi had called their 18V batteries "20V MAX" like everyone else. There is a string of 5 in series in the 18V battery and 10 in series in the 40V. Like the Ego "56V" line has 14, which would only be considered a nominal 48V on an ebike.

Bla bla bla...glad you're happy with your present and thanks for the review.

The silly thing is, the mower has a slot to hold a spare battery. It easily could have been 2 slots to hold 2 18v batteries, which would have been my preference.

I dislike the "MAX" marketing terminology. Nobody cares what the voltage is the moment a battery comes off the charger. We're interested in operating voltage. The marketing is similar to how vacuums are claimed to be 5hp "peak". The outlet has a peak of 2.4hp before the breaker pops, and really shouldn't be run at more than 1.9hp continuously.

I've read many good things about the Ego.

...now you've got me thinking about how to combine 2x 18v batteries in series and create an adapter to plug them into the 40v battery slot. I'd sell the 40v battery and stick with my plethora of 18v batteries.

...and I cut the grass again last night and mulched instead of bagged. Took the deck down 1 notch from tallest, which is probably a little soon considering how much I took off the first time I cut the grass 2 days ago. Mulching works great too, though the wife is complaining that the kid will make a mess and that I should bag.

No! Don't bag the kid.

I used the 18v Ryobi string trimmer a couple nights ago too, and it got the small job done, though I wouldn't say it was a great tool. It has a single 5" line (10" diameter) that is a bit underpowered. I don't need anything better for my yard, but for a large yard I would want something with more power. Also not thrilled that the line advances any time the trigger is released. That has me walking around with a spinning head as I reposition just so I'm not wasting line.

Reconditioned Worx trimmer is on sale with 2 batteries for $58 right now (price reflected at checkout).

https://www.ebay.com/itm/254131400566

Probably worth it for the batteries alone.

Does anyone know if Scotland Yard has grass? If so, will you pretend this is merely a coincidence?!

If you just happened to get a disposable mower I would suggest you looked into selling it and buying a corded one.

I don't know your dad and I cannot infer anything from my own, I just hope yours has better interpersonal skills, financial skills--anyway.

Maybe I am just sentimental because both Father's Day and the fifth anniversary of losing my father are coming up, but I would take the dad rep and accompanying loss of efficiency.

As for growing plants, I hear the best ones are ones that you will actually eat.

Not grass, flowers! Looks like you have a good starting base with gravel mulch to keep down weeds, unless it's underlaid with solid black plastic. Permeable landscape fabric is OK, just make holes where you want the plants.

WRT the lawn mower, I've used one for a decade or more. Black & Decker with lead-acid batteries, still going strong. The good thing about lead-acid is that when the built-in charger craps out, as mine did a few years ago, you can just use a regular car charger.

Not sure what AH capacity that battery is, I planned to buy the 4ah battery with the ryobi. It's already a compromise to go electric for yard equipment (typically it's cheap ****) so I want to make sure the battery is oversized for what I need. Thanks for the feedback on the products!

How about wildflowers? They should not be too much maintenance and the bees should appreciate it?

There is a general category of https://duckduckgo.com/?q=landscaping+ground+covers

Creepers and sedums and moss.... Oh my!

www.thespruce.com/best-low-maintenance-ground-covers

Edit:
There're 16 related links at the bottom of that page. Some might be of interest. (silver foliage, deer-resistant, etc.)

The advantage of grasses is their root system. Genuine resilience. An acre of prairie has more biomass than an acre of mature forest.

What grasses will work is the only “problem”. Livestock grazers in your area figured it out about a century ago. Start there.

A lawn needs boundaries. This is where homeowners fail. Fences and right angle corners make upkeep more difficult. (A lawnmower should never need to be reversed).

The house, trees, the drive and walkways, are all prime for plantings and beds that extend “into” the yard. It’s the easiest start. A few feet here and there, then contours that allow a lawn to flow around and through things is not that hard to get started on.

Prairie is not just grass, though. Lots of wildflowers and other plants, too. And prairie grasses generally aren't boring lawn grasses, or the ones planted for pasture.

Ya might get some roots if ya'll didn't mow it all the time.

You got a lot to learn about grasses yet. The advantages of lawn.