I HATE my lawn. Lawnmower question.

[GrowinVeggiesInSC]

Yes, I hate my lawn. If it weren't for DH's typical American "must have nice lawn"-mentality, I'd rip it all up and have a cottage garden in the back.
Anyways, our lawn mower doesn't like starting for me. It starts on the 5th or so try for DH, but not me. I pull and pull and pull and it won't start. It makes me angry, and so I yell at DH on phone (I mow when he's out of town), and then he gets angry, too. The lawnmower is going to be the death of us.
I also hate the fact that half an hour of lawn-mowing pollutes the air more than half an hour of driving in the car. That's horrible! I know there are battery-powered mowers out there, but until I can get one cheap I was wondering if anyone uses one of those rotating blades push mowers without a motor? I remember I used to mow our lawn with one as a kid, but I don't remember if it worked well or not.
So, basically, I am looking for
(1) feedback on rotating blade non-motor push mowers (not sure of official name of these) - which ones are worth buying? Are they worth it at all?
(2) ways to convice DH to get rid of some of the lawn



It's not like we have a huge yard and really nice grass. It's really just weeds. See below:

 

[vfem]

Umm... I have an acre... I will only use a riding mower! I'm sorry, I know its bad... but I can only cut back so much to help the enviroment... and pushing a mower for 6+ hours every week is NOT happening!!!!!



Good luck with your mowing... I would go with your first instinct and just tear the lawn out while hubby is away and put in a cottage garden!. You have my permission!!!

:bun

 

[Rosalind]

I understand completely. I have long since given up attempting to operate any power tool that uses a pull cord. Last time I tried to start the weedwacker, the cord tore off. What engineer on this earth actually thought, "Aha! A starter motor that requires no less than 13 cusswords and the arm strength of a chimpanzee on PCP! Yes, that will be perfect for my $500 piece of home-maintenance equipment to be used by homeowners with minimal upper-body strength, who spend their week sitting in front of a computer screen!"

We have a riding mower, which DH operates. We also have a reel mower, of the type you describe, which I use to cut grass around the swimming pool because the pool gate is too awkward to get a mower through normally. The reel mower was quite cheap.

Downsides to a reel mower: Tends to lock up and the blades suddenly decide not to move for no obvious reason, even though there is nothing at all stuck in the mower. Lacks torque, won't tolerate even minor unevenness in the ground, cannot cope with the more ferocious weeds like goldenrod, even immature 18" high goldenrod. Mostly cuts grass by brute force and despite repeated Dremel-and-whetstone sharpenings, will still tend to bend the grass over or make creases at the appropriate height instead of actually cutting. Heaven forfend it should break seriously, because once, when I ran over a rock and called to look for repair parts, it turned out I could not buy repair parts at all and instead was directed to buy a new one. Longer grass and weeds will tend to wrap around the gears of the thing, and then you'll need to yank them out without slicing your fingers open.

Plus side: It works 90% of the time, if the grass isn't too tall (under 5"). It's cheap. You'll get a good workout, because you really have to shove the thing around. In the event that it breaks, which is unlikely as there just isn't that much to it, repairing it is not rocket surgery. No gas, no pollution, very quiet, saves your eardrums. It's sort of hypnotic to watch the thing whirring along, snippets of grass being neatly flipped into the bag-o-clippings. Low maintenance.

Don't think I'd want to do a whole entire yard with one, but for smallish areas it works well enough. Here's a compromise: Leave just enough yard for your DH to put a picnic table and play catch with the dog, and then make the rest into cottage garden. The small amount left will be easy-peasy to mow with a reel mower.

We have a bunch of rusty old scythe blades in the barn, I think I'd rather use those twice a year and turn the lawn into a hay crop...

 

[Catalina]

My house came with one of those reel mowers. When my lawn mower broke down I tried to use the reel mower a couple of times. It was a LOT of work. And my neighbors stood outside their houses and stared at me!

I don't know if I would use it all the time, because it seems to miss some of the grass and just push the grass down instead of cutting it.

It was nice to not smell like a gasoline tank and to be able to hear after I mowed the lawn.
I'm saving up for an electric cordless mower.

 

[seedcorn]

2 keys to reel mowers.........

1) Always keep the blades razor sharp.
2) Cut the grass before it needs to be cut....the shorter the better.

 

[SewingDiva]

We ripped out our front lawn and replaced it with groundcover and shrubs, and I have to say I'm really glad we did. Lawns just suck up water and resources, in my town all of my neighbors have golf course size lawns that are never used. And the noise from the mow-n-blow lawn service guys is never ending! I shudder when I think of the groundwater pollution from all that chemical fertilzer.

We still have a small lawn in the back for the kids, and my husband mows it himself with a push mower. He did a comparisions of corded, battery and gas mowers that may help:

http://www.media-organic.com/?p=279

He has also stopped using chemcial fertilzer and this year rented an aerater. it made a difference all ready.

http://www.media-organic.com/?p=398

Phyllis

 

[aquarose]

2 keys to reel mowers.........

1) Always keep the blades razor sharp.
2) Cut the grass before it needs to be cut....the shorter the better.

This is what I was going to say.

 

[GrowinVeggiesInSC]

Thank you everyone for you feedback!
As I was reading about the reel mowers (ah, THAT'S what they're called!) I had flashbacks to my youth of the grass looking kind of chunky after I mowed it. I do remember having to mow frequently to make it look nice.
Phyllis, your husband's account of his childhood days with the electric mower also jogged my memory: we had one of those mowers, and thinking back now, I can't believe my parents just sent me out with it and said, "go mow!" Kind of dangerous with that cord, but I'm still here to tell the tale, so I obviously knew what I was doing. I remember having to stop, unplug the mower, open a different window and replug in a different room to mow the whole lawn. Gosh, I had forgotten that!

Vfem, I think I am actually going to work on my cottage garden little by little. DH goes out of town periodically for work, and once I have a job and a little cash flow, I might just have to start making flowerbeds on the outskirts of the yard and work my way in until we have less and less grass. Heeheehee!

Looks like reducing the size of the lawn is the best option, then getting an electric mower. Well, now I know what I have to nag DH about. It's only a matter of time...

Thanks again everyone!