I hate grass.
 

I hate grass.

That might be too strong of a statement actually. I'm neutral on grass. I dont think its pretty. I dont understand the fascination some people have with making their yards in their suburban homes resemble the hanging gardens of Babylon. That's their thing. Whatever. But I DO hate cutting it.

It's a chore. My yard isn't close to flat so the mower is either running away from me or having to be forced uphill. It smells something awful, always needs work. The weedeater is even worse. The smell, the noise, and the vibration is vulgar. I go through about 2 gallons overall a month just cutting grass. At least last summer thats what I was averaging.

This summer my mower/weedeater wound up missing. Which turned out to be more of a blessing in disguise. I checked around on craigslist for a used mower and happened upon on an electric one. "A battery powered electric reel mower?" It's the oddest contraption, but didnt cost hardly any money. So I figured I'd give it a shot.

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It's no longer a chore to cut my grass, the mower cuts fine, it doesen't weigh anything, it doesent make any noise. I can push it uphill now with one hand and point and laugh at the neighbors cutting their grass with those nasty gas ones with the other. I can cut grass before I leave for work in the morning and not disturb the neighborhood. I can cut in the evening so the sun isn't beating on me and making my red neck even more red. It's gone from a major chore that I dreaded to something akin to just something I'll do for fun almost.

Why haven't I done this sooner? Other than I've never heard of such a thing I honestly have no idea. I guess I thought having a 'weak' mower would make it even more of a chore? I can't answer that myself. :turtle:

I went ahead and got an electric (corded) weedeater off amazon for 20$ since I still haven't weeded this year. If its half as good as the mower I'll be more than happy with it.

I don't mind grass.

grass, what grass ?
 

That's the reason I don't have any.
Trees and leaves.

the thud of a manhole cover heard outside rumbled the house.. tires on the pavement, people talking while thier walking....
skateboards, rain, the sun is hot...no scnery, the blinds stay shut, no oxygen, the windows stay shut, no shade, the a/c runs all summer... a step outside, past the manhole cover, I am the one walking making thenoise...to get in the car and sit in the coolpark with trees and grass and other pro life things..

how much do you hate grass?

i love grass. i love it mowed or not mowed.
i don't mind mowing it, but i don't like shoes to turn green.
i wanted to use a real mower, but tiny bumps in my ground would cause the reals to hit bottom.
an electric reel looks like a lot of fun too.
we now have aminals that eat the grass. then i will eat the aminals.

We don't have grass, we have a small lot and a big strong dog. The weeds grow just fine, though;)

OK, we do have a few blades here and there, where the dog runs less. Dad-in-law would borrow a gas mower from next door (family), so last year I bought him an electric. Ever since I've been doing most of the mowing, since it's so fun (and I promised never to touch the gasser).

my dog eats grass.
he;s always nervous and kinda gay.

I have a honda powered husky push mower which is pretty new and a reel mower bought at the local flea market for 7 dollars. I use the reel mower most of the time.I added some schwinn bike handle grips and adjusted the bed knife. Works perfectly and my neighbor hates it. offers me gas all the time like i'm commiting a crime or that he thinks i'm looking for attention....! ? I love it!

I like mine. It plugs in and has a cord.

The grass dries up the lawn through transpiration. If it were not for that, I would have ground water coming into my basement.

I have a push reel mower for when I can keep up, and a grass whip for the long stems. I now have a corded electric mower for when it gets ahead of me. BTW, I put a Kill-A-Watt meter on the electric mower, and it uses 0.38kWh in an hour, so that is equivalent to 12/1000nds of a gallon of gasoline per hour of use.

How about a real riding mower? The Cutting Edge: Bicycle Lawnmowing : TreeHugger If I didn't already have the rechargable electric, I'd be tempted.

I suppose it also matters where you live. Down here (Gulf Coast Texas; more accurately, South Texas) lawn grass doesn't stop growing at all some years. Never goes dormant. Temps are never high enough in the summer to slow it either. I was already familiar with St. Augustine and Bermuda from having lived in North Texas (they spread above ground and below ground; very aggressive) . . up there you got a break from about Thanksgiving to Easter. And, then again, in late June through September because the temps rise so high. You still had need of machinery to keep it clean (this is the city, not the country), but you could lay off on occasion.

But not here. There's a reason all the old western cattle drives started from this place, and it is the sea of grasses that make up some of the giant ranches out of town. There is one divided into about four separate parcels: and on one of them they work the cattle a couple of times a year into one of several pastures . . each of which is more than 6,000-acres and isn't even a tenth of that ONE section. Kingdom of grass is more like it.

I go through at least 2-gls month on the various equipment, and it is all of it from twelve to twenty-plus years old. Helps, enormously, to have an excellent tech. I can do my own work, but . . some guys have the magic touch.

You Yanks with that fescue or bluegrass or whatever have a short enough season. I've seen some very pretty lawns up there when I travel. And I can see that it may be a lot of work. And mowing a pain. Here, we do a soil test (Ag Ext Svc) to try to get the dirt healthy, and closely follow a regimen that doesn't allow too much fertilizer or water. Too hard, and way too expensive to have to start over after a drought (by which we're plagued some years). I know that's half the battle right there: good practice.

The other is in carving the lawn to a shape and size that eliminates having to EVER pull the mower backwards. Trimming a few trees to let light through. Going with perennial groundcovers elsewhere. Never letting the grass close to trees. Filling, grading to eliminate machinery problems or drainage. Good planning, in other words. I tend to do a little more each year on these older houses I've had.

Planning and practice that is a lot of work . . at first. And cash. But pays off every year afterwards. While I'd like to someday have an electric (no-cord) that could cut my lawn (15,000 s/f), that machine doesn't yet exist. A push reel mower is a laugh. Won't work. Same for the other equipment.

I cut mine as it needs it. Might be three/four days, might be six/seven. It grows as it will. By staying on top of it mowing is fast & easy since the layout and equipment are all up to par.

The alternatives to a lawn are nearly always more expensive, more work, and might take a decade to really establish. I've seen some nice ones . . and they have someone "on" them twice weekly. Paid help. And then one has to deal with the critters that tall grasses, etc, can sometimes bring close to the house. Best ones I've seen still have lawn grass a fair distance out from the foundation plantings to avoid this.

But you probably don't live in a place where in about early March every vet's office and sporting goods store has a sign out about stocking up on rattlesnake venom. And, that snake boots are 15% off for a limited time. . .

(We also, locally, have 15-varieties of mosquitoes. There is no season for them . . just add rain).

There's good gas powered equipment out there for sale to the knowledgeable buyer. Can be re-engined or whatever. Worked for me to get commercial or near-commercial grade equipment this way. Those cheap box store mowers would make anyone swear off mowing.

Good site: www.lawnsite.com for commercial service operators. A sub-forum for homeowners.

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We used an electric mower when we had a smaller yard. I even looked into a robotic battery powered one for property are we moved, but was advised that they tend to get abducted when running unsupervised...
Also, I had a pond and a some inclines that worked against having one.

Depending on your region, native turf grasses like Buffalo Grass would reduce the need to mow, period. Buffalo grass tolerates drought, has deeper roots that absorb more runoff, and only grow 3-8 inches anyway. Less mowing, less fertilizer. The biggest cost would be the initial planting.

I've looked at those Neutron electric mowers, but the price and current lack of lawn (renting), have kept me from buying one. Anyone tried one of those?

Our dogs also eat grass but not as much as you would want in replacement of a mower :D

Just to update this post, I'm still using this mower on occasion. But because of the way my yard has grown this summer, I usually just use the electric corded weed eater now. It's powerful enough, although the cord is kinda of lame with how many trees are in my yard.

i have a 23hp twin cylinder 1/2 litre overhead valve riding mower. oh yeah and a 52 inch wide mowing path. i love that thing. it only takes me 2 hours to cut the lawn. it so previous push mower.

electric? forget about it. i don't like the idea of running 300 feet of extension cords. a cordless trimmer would do about 1/15th of my total trimming. that isnt practical. yard equipment is gasoline. the trimmer, mower, hedger, edger, blower, rake, mulcher chainsaw etc etc.

electric is for small residential yards that are the side of half a basketball court.

so all my

C3H8, check out Daox' and Bennelson's plug-in riding mower conversions. You can replace a 23HP ICE with electric, it's just a matter of budget.

But a bigger issue is, why are you cultivating that many acres of turf? If that was mine, I'd take the portion I don't need and plant some black walnut there. In a few years, you'll have walnuts, and many years down the road, timber.

2 hours to cut the lawn?

I'd give up after 20 minutes. It ain't worth it.

My mower's name is Mowmar Cut-Offi and it has a special extractor exhaust for maximum fe.

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I use an all natural mowing system on my lawn. Conventional lawn mowing requires spending hundreds to thousands of dollars on equipment and fuel to cut the grass, are noisy and stinky when operating, takes time out of the day to mow the grass, and the equipment eventually wears out and has to be rebuilt or replaced.

By contrast, my lawn mowing system is a profit center, fertilizes the lawn as it mows, is quiet and odorless in operation, has a fully automatic mowing function requiring little of my time, the mowing units replace themselves as they wear out, and put meat on the table.

As you might have figured out, my lawn mowers are sheep, which I rotate through the lawn from their usual pastures as needed to keep the lawn cut Their main drawback is that the ornamental plants in my yard have to be plants that they don't like to eat or need to be fenced off from the sheep. The only real maintenance they require is hoof trimming once or twice a year.

I don't enjoy mowing grass. We have about 3/4ths of an acre of might be considered a lawn. We tried using sheep for about 6 months but they were not effective for us. Only eating the clover and talk about pollution, greasy crap all over. Sold the sheep and got a diesel tractor with bushog. I mow about every 2-3 weeks. We have another 10 acres of grass that I let an amish guy mow and bale. He feeds his cattle and sheep in the winter. Near perfect recycling.

We heat with wood using harvested downed trees in our forest. They grow and fall on their own. Our house is off the grid at home. We only get there on the weekends. Have a small solar array and use a generator to supplement. Sorry for getting off topic.

Greasy crap?

ew

Sheep don't have greasy crap, if you want to see greasy crap, check out geese crap. My sheep leave behind little accumulations of dry, pea-sized pellets, which in the summer break down into the soil in about a week. When I rotate my flock of sheep through the yard from the pastures, I stock them at a level where they graze everything down in the day or two they spend in the yard before going back to the pasture.

Heart the ATCO Safety Car!

Neutral
 

I'm neutral on grass, don't mind the stuff but don't see the point in keeping it perfect. There's nothing natural about perfection. With that said I have a B&D cordless electric mower that works great. I can't say enough good things about it. It cuts my 1/4 acre in one charge and does a great job of mulching the clippings.

I prefer just to let it turn into a meadow. Fly-mo's are a hassle to manhandle around, and you can't turn the petrol ones (pushed/driven, not ride on).

I bought a Fiskars "Momentum" reel mower today and I heartily endorse it. You have to use this mower to understand and appreciate it's seemingly bass-ackwards design. The drive wheels being in the rear means they can't be lifted off the ground, and the frictionless reel doesn't touch the shear bar (though the grass does) and so the reel spins for a long time, and it is *very* quiet and very smooth.

I will try it on the really thick grass, but I'm guessing it will do fine. The reel is heavy and has a lot of momentum (hence the name). The handle is also very sturdy. The four wheels on the base move along the ground in a way that is quite different than other mowers.

It is quite different, but there is a reason; and the results speak for themselves.

http://www2.fiskars.com/Pr​oducts/Ya...#8203;l-Mowers

http://reelmowerreviews.com/wp-conte...79-256x300.jpg
(click on image for link)

I hate grass too...
 

I would almost rather be kicked in the jewels, than cut grass...

Honestly, if it weren't for BEER, I don't think the lawn would get cut...


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This is pure genius... What's the point of pushing a motor any way?

here you go if you don't wanna mow the gas! Artificial Grass by waterlessgrass.com

For what it's worth, the battery on the reel motor gave out, and I replaced with a plug in mower. The cord is a little bit of a hassle, but once it gets going it's great, and is easily the most powerful mower I've ever had.

If anyone wants the reel mower, come pick it up, I'm sure someone here would want to try to fix it. :P

These reel things are old school - I'm sure my dad has Grandad's old mower still somewhere. He had sheep (from the farmer next door) to do his so doesn't use it.

Well...

I like this topic. I love grass. I have grass in my garden. I used to walk bare footed on it. So i like walk on it....