I had quite an enjoyable morning cutting my grass last Saturday.
The sky above me was clear blue, the plants in the borders on the outskirts of my lawn are full of spring colour as well as the lawn itself being so lush and green.
There was a nice warm air that dried the grass of the early morning dew which meant the mower cut and collected the clippings near perfectly.
An alternative to the petrol mower?
A near idyllic moment of outdoors bliss.
I was having a wee try of one of those new battery powered push mowers.
It was a very nice, light and straight forward machine to operate.
No pulling your arm off as you draw out the cord of a petrol mower or the risk of cutting the electric cable and electrocuting yourself.
It’s simply the one wee button to press and switch on, bring in the safety handle to start the cutting attachment then using your thumbs to do the same with drive handle.
With this you have four levels of walking speed you can set it too, which I thought was handy, then off I went.
That Saturday morning was definitely the nice and chilled walking speed level.
Cutting the grass at Scone
I have two lawned areas in my garden at home.
The bigger area which I was cutting has been the play area during the 11 years my family have lived here so far.
Football, cricket, badminton, camping, cycling and even a music festival has taken place on here when the kids were younger.
As they move in to their teenage years, activity time in this space is sadly becoming less which despite me starting to reduce its size with the planting of the odd tree and shrub, is still a fair size of lawn needing cut on a regular basis.
Is battery power the future?
I guess the key thing with these battery powered machines is will they have enough charge to do the job?
Unfortunately this time it didn’t, needing a recharge three quarters of the way into the job.
But I did take the opportunity to reduce the height of cut so was making the machine work harder by taking more off the height.
I’ve also learned that if I’d read the instruction manual properly I’d have found out there is an eco mode which would’ve extended the charge time of the battery.
I’ve one of those smart meters so watched the dial to see what happened when I popped the battery in for a top up, it was good to see the colour stayed in the green zone.
Ok, I confess I was relieved to see it stay in the green zone meaning it wasn’t too high on the running costs and hitting me in the pocket.
The one thing that was missing was the clicking sound of the blades rubbing against each other on my cylinder push mower.
Handy machines these are not needing any fossil fuels to power them, just good old grunt from me.
A great way of getting some exercise to keep me fit, who needs a gym membership when you have one of these.
Methods of cutting
The cutting method on our pedestrian mowers usually comes in one of two ways.
A rotary mower has the action of the blade spinning like a record and is best for general use and rougher areas of grass where a cylinder blade that spins forward, is best for fine lawns like putting and bowling greens.
Our lawn certainly isn’t that but I always fancied one for nostalgic reasons, remembering the one my old man used to have when I was a child.
Ok, I confess it also doesn’t cost me a penny in running costs!
I take the completely different attitude on my front lawn only cutting every three weeks at the highest cut and indeed leave a curved shape in the centre that I don’t cut at all until late August when I give it its end of season meadow cut.
I deliberately cut in shapes and different heights of cut so it doesn’t look like its been deliberately abandoned, this managed wild look works perfectly for me.
Wildflowers and wildlife
It’s a great habitat for wildlife if you only cut at the maximum height will give more opportunity for them to go about their business safely.
The wildflowers growing amongst the grass swords also get an opportunity to grow a bit more and be the plant they actually are.
I’d completely forgotten that last autumn after I’d scarified out the moss, in the patches of bare soil that appeared I had a go at sowing some yellow rattle, only remembering this spring I had done so when a plant I didn’t recognise caught my eye growing in my meadow.
The experts say this is a great plant to first establish when you are looking to create a meadow.
It’s roots seek out those of plants growing nearby especially grasses, taking the water and nutrients from them restricting their growth.
As grass is generally the stronger species growing in a meadow this weakens them allowing other plants such as clover, knapweed and vetches to also establish themselves, creating a colourful garden for myself and wildlife to enjoy.
Conversation