If you are a homeowner who wants to take good care of both home and garden, then routine lawncare is going to be an important part of this and you will no doubt want to create a specific plan for the lawn’s routine maintenance.

Often this involves keeping careful watch and care over your tools as well as the land that makes up your garden and lawn.

It is important to familiarize yourself with a few simple ways to care for your lawn, before delving into more complicated procedures.

For effective lawncare, you will need to keep your tools well maintained and clean, especially if you are interested in long-term gardening.

This involves keeping your eyes open for signs of rust or wearing, and being ready to replace those tools in the unfortunate events of breaking down. Some basic tools to have include a hoe, a gardening shovel, a trimmer, and a watering mechanism – and most importantly of all for lawncare, a good lawnmower of a type suitable for the sort of grass that your have.

In a family garden, a rotary mower will probably be the best option as it does not cut the grass so close – you also have the choice of a hover mower. For more formal lawns, a cylinder or reel mower will give a perfect finish and for larger areas you may want to choose a petrol lawnmower of the ride on type – such as a lawn tractor.

Once your tools are all in order, the next aspect to keep in mind is fertilizer. There are many different types of fertilizer that may be considered for your lawn, the usefulness of each depending on the type of greenery you have growing on your yard. In general, you will want to have fertilizer that is full of nitrogen, without an excess that may stimulate overgrowth.

Once you have selected your fertilizer, it is a good idea to plan your distribution in order to promote healthy growth in the lawn. In general, the grade of the fertilizer will determine the pounds spread over the lawn. This can be calculated with the help of professionals or numerous guides that may be found on the internet. No matter the amount, the frequency of application should always be the same: once every eight-ten weeks.

Taking care of your lawn can become an absorbing and relaxing  pastime and, as with any hobby or activity, practice can help you adhere to these lawncare tips until they become a regular part of your routine. By keeping them in mind, you will be able to maintain a healthy and neat appearance in your lawn that will be a source of pleasure and pride.

The second benefit of using a petrol lawnmower is that generally, they are a lot more powerful than electric mowers, they are more reliable, durable and they are the machine of choice for professional gardeners and gardening services providers all over the world. The motors are very powerful and are usually started with a pull cord. Another great benefit with the modern petrol lawnmowers is that you can now get models that start with an ignition key, just like the family car so you do not need a lot of strength to be able to crank up your mower using the pull cord, just fill it up, switch it on, and away you go! In some places, like in the US, these petrol mowers are called ‘gas’ or ‘gas-powered’ mowers but they run on fuel nonetheless, usually a mixture of gasoline or petrol and oil.

The third benefit of petrol lawnmowers is the number of top quality brands available across all three main types of lawn mower, rotary mowers, cylinder or reel mowers (as they are sometimes called), and ride on lawn mowers or riding mowers. Rotary mowers are either the wheeled kind or the hover kind. If the ground is a bit rough and uneven in places in your garden, the rotary and hover mowers can cope well with all of this and provide a good quality of cut and both of these are very suitable for a family garden where the grass is not cut too short because it is a recreational area for the children and other members of the family.

A Westwood Lawn Tractor with Mulching Attachment

The benefit of the ride on lawn mowers is that they make mowing a large lawn, a breeze! You can sit down to get the job done and any garden with around a half an acre or more is ideal for mowing with a ride on mower. If you have a smaller garden but find mowing physically quite difficult and would like to sit down to mow your grass, you can get a compact ride on mower to do the job. If the lawn is very large or you have a paddock or similar, you can get a ride on lawn tractor.
The cylinder or reel mowers are mowers for showpiece lawns where you want to get a perfect, short cut that looks immaculate. The benefit of the petrol lawnmowers in this category is that they are powerful enough to have a heavy roller behind them that gives a perfect, striped result like a tennis court on your lawn at home.

The fourth benefit of petrol lawnmowers is the great accessories you can buy to go with them nowadays. There are large capacity grass boxes which mean that you do not have to stop mowing very often to empty them. Some ride-on mowers are equipped with boxes that can be emptied with a flick of the switch, whilst you are still sitting in the seat. There are models with mulching attachments that enable you to mulch or feed your lawn each time you mow by spraying back finely cut grass onto the lawn you have cut. There are even some mowers, specially adapted to enable you to do some grass collecting and some mulching at the same time.

To sum up the benefits of petrol lawnmowers, the four points that I have detailed are that they are powerful, there is no need to worry about the electric cord, there are a large number of models available by top manufacturers in all three types of mower and there are great attachments to make mowing your lawn even easier. Take a look at the individual types mentioned here by checking out the article for a petrol rotary mower, a petrol cylinder mower or a ride on mower.

Petrol Lawnmowers are available from Amazon in the UK and US so please take a look at our shop pages to view the range available.

Each year in the summer, some truly awful injuries happen in back gardens throughout the country where children have been hurt in accidents with powered lawnmowers.

So whether you have an electric or a petrol lawnmower, you need to take extra care as the number of injuries to children in the USA alone, is estimated to be about 20,000 each year.

Whilst most accidents with a petrol lawnmower seem to be associated with ride on mowers, they occur with petrol and electric walk behind models too. The following tips are intended to be helpful in preventing similar injuries from happening in your own family.

Make sure that there is nothing on the lawn that could get caught in the mower blades. Any bits of stone, gravel, twig or even toys should be removed as if they get caught up in the very high speed rotation of the blades, they will be flung out with tremendous force that can cause a very nasty injury, particularly to the face and eyes.

It is perfectly natural that children want to help in the garden and especially that they would want to help to mow the lawn. The guidelines for the safe age for a child to use a mower are, that no child under the age of 12 years should be allowed to use a mower of any kind and that no child under 16 should be allowed to operate a riding lawnmower – and even then, only under supervision.

If you enjoy mowing your lawn with your ride on mower, it is easy to understand how appealing these machines are to young children who view them as a great toy and love to sit up with you when you mow. However, it is very dangerous and those children who fall from lawnmowers in this way, often have to suffer the results for the rest of their lives.

When you mow your lawn, it is best if your animals and children are indoors where you know they are safe. If this is not possible, emphasise to them that they must play well away from where you need to mow and if you have another family member who can keep an eye on them, so much the better.

Try to make sure that the mower you purchase has the sort of handle that, when released, stops the mower from moving forward. You should never drive a mower backwards but if you cannot avoid it, exercise extreme care.

It does not matter whether you have a petrol lawnmower or an electric one, mowers attract children like moths to a flame. Most of us would struggle to get the garden chores done without these powered machines but giving some extra thought to garden safety is well worth it.

In addition, it is not wise to mulch the lawn every time you mow as this can lead to two problems.  The first is an accumulation of clippings on the surface of your lawn which can blow onto paths and borders and, in wet conditions, get carried into the house on shoes which is a major nuisance!  The second is an overdevelopment of the normal lawn thatch.  Thatch is an accumulation of grass roots and stems above ground and is normal in all lawns but can cause problems if it gets too established.  If thatch gets to about ½” thick, stop mulching and take steps to de-thatch your lawn.  Otherwise your lawn will suffer from drought (as water will be unable to effectively penetrate to the roots) and from starvation (as sunlight will be restricted from reaching the blades of grass and photosynthesis, the process by which all plants manufacture food from sunlight will be hindered).

A Westwood Lawn Tractor with Mulching Attachment

If you have a petrol lawnmower of the push type, it may be possible to fit a mulching attachment.  It is possible to buy a purpose built mulching lawn mower. This might be a ride on mower that offers a combination system where some of the grass is collected and some mulched.  When mulching your lawn, leave the grass about half an inch longer than normal and always water your lawn after mulching, not before.  The reason for this is that dry clippings will disperse more readily and then, if you water, they will settle and not blow onto areas where you do not want them!

The great benefit of mulching lawn clippings is that you will be able to reduce, or perhaps even eliminate the need for additional fertiliser as about 4% of the clippings comprises Nitrogen, 2% Potassium and 1% Phosphorous the decomposition of the clippings puts these elements back into your lawn.

About 80% of the grass clippings is water and it is obviously a great benefit to put this back onto the lawn in times of drought or extreme heat.  Mulching will also help to prevent moisture loss

We look at the features and benefits of the four main types of Petrol lawnmower, click on the link provided, to read about each  type.

If you are unsure which type would be best for your size of garden, take a look at Which type of Petrol Lawnmower Should I Choose.

A Petrol Cylinder Mower

A cylinder mower is generally considered to be the best type of lawn mower for giving a neat and professional finish to your lawn.  A model fitted with a roller will give Wimbledon style stripes and these are the type used by the professionals on golf courses and tennis courts.

A Petrol Rotary Mower

For most family lawns, a Rotary mower could be the type to go for.  They can cope with areas that are well-used and uneven.  This makes them almost universally suitable and means that there is a far greater number of Rotary Mower models than Cylinder Mower models on the market.  Because they have four wheels, they are good for medium to large sized family lawns, but a Rotary mower is not quite as good as a Hover mower if you have a very tiny lawn or intricately shaped border edge to contend with.

A Petrol Hover Mower

A petrol hover mower runs on a cushion of air, rather like a hovercraft.  This cushion of air is generated by the rapidly spinning rotary blade and enables the mower to move in any direction very easily, making it ideal if you have tricky shaped borders or an intricately shaped lawn.  The quality of finish is about the same as a Rotary Mower, not quite as neat as a Cylinder Mower, making it most suitable for family lawns.

A Petrol Ride on Mower and Petrol Lawn Tractor

Whether to choose a Ride on Lawnmower is largely down to your own personal preference and budget if you have a garden of around half an acre or more.  If you have an acre or more, you will probably be considering a something even larger than a ride on mower, a Lawn Tractor.  There are several things to take into consideration when buying, not least the width of the access ways to your lawn – it is not much help having a wide cutting deck on your mower if it will not go through the gateway to your garden!

For example, if you have half an acre of grass to cut, you may be able to manage perfectly well with a walk-behind cylinder mower.  However, if you have a busy job and time is not on your side, you may prefer to choose a ride on model.  This would also be an important consideration if your physical health is making you feel it would be nice to sit down to mow the lawn!
The size of the lawn you have to cut is going to be the most important factor in deciding which lawnmower to buy.  You need to consider whether to buy a self propelled lawn mower or walk behind mower, how powerful you need your mower to be for the area you need to cut and what width of blades would be most suitable.

When choosing a petrol lawnmower, you will notice that the specifications state the size of lawn each particular model is recommended for, usually in m² (square metres) and sometimes, on larger models, in terms of tennis courts or acres. 

For reference, a tennis court is approximately 1/6th of an acre which is about 640m².  It should be pointed out that the size quoted is often the maximum recommended for any particular model and if your garden is close to this, it might be wise to consider buying the next size model up in a range.

If you are choosing a cylinder lawnmower, choose your model by mowing width (which is the width of the area of grass cut at a time).  Obviously, the narrower the width, the more times you will need to walk up and down to mow the same area.  However, offset against this is the fact that a larger mower is more difficult to manoeuvre (if for example, you have to mow round trees or garden features in your lawn) and may also be more difficult to get through narrow gateways.

If your lawn is less than half the size of a tennis court, the best size mowing width to choose is around 16” – 18” which is about 40 – 45 cms.
If your lawn is up to around the size of two tennis courts the best size of mowing width is around 20” – 22” which is about 50 – 55 cms.
If your lawn is up to around the size of four tennis courts the best size of mowing width is greater than 21” or 52 cms and you will also need a more powerful model.
If your lawn is greater than the size of four tennis courts, you should seriously consider buying a ride on lawnmower or a lawn tractor.

The Power of each model is linked to the size of the cutting width, so by choosing a wider width, you will be getting a more powerful engine.  The power is usually given in horsepower (BHP) and the usual range for Petrol Lawnmowers is between two and seven BHP.  It is probably worth choosing the most powerful model available in the range for the cutting width you require as this will not only get the job done quicker and easier but will also extend the life of your machine.

If you are using a Petrol Lawnmower in your garden, you may wish to look at other petrol driven equipment,  I have provided two links here, as other vital pieces of equipment are a petrol strimmer and a petrol hedge trimmer. A petrol strimmer is invaluable for tidying up rough grass and undergrowth around trees and hedges and for border edges.  A petrol hedge trimmer is worth its weight in gold in a large garden as a trailing electric cord is an absolute liability when cutting hedges. Both of these are versatile and useful machines for your garden.

How do they work?
Remember those old push along grass cutters that used to nearly break your back trying to mow the lawn?

They all had a rotating cylinder of blades and this is the principle of the modern cylinder mower – except of course that nowadays, they are powered and much easier to use.
The cutting mechanism is described as a scissor action. Rotating blades cut against a fixed blade cutting the grass between the two blades as the cylinder is propelled forward.  There are now some models where the blades pass very close to each other without actually touching.  This is called a ‘contact-free’ system.

This scissor action gives a crisp, clean cut which results in a very neat finish.  The rotating cylinder can be set to cut the grass shorter than a rotary mower,right down to a height of only 6mm about 1/8”.  The maximum length for grass to be cut to is 40mm, about 1.5”.

A Petrol Cylinder Lawnmower

Features
Ideal if you want your lawn to have a striped effect like a tennis court.  Professional green-keepers use a cylinder mower with a heavy rear roller to give a better striped effect.
Cuts your lawn to a smooth, fine surface
Cylinder width up to 24” on Petrol models
Can be push-along or self-propelled
Option to replace the cylinder with a scarifier to make a dual purpose machine (option only available on some models)
Key start instead of Pull-cord available on some models
Not suitable if the area of grass you need to cut is on rough, uneven ground.  This could cause damage to the blades if they ground on a stone.  They are also unsuitable if the grass is long and wet

Top Brands

There is not such a wide choice of cylinder petrol lawnmowers as would be if you wanted a rotary petrol lawnmower.  The top Brand Names in Cylinder Lawn mowers are Suffolk Punch, Atco, Hayter and Qualcast.

A Rotary Petrol Lawnmower

You cannot cut as close with a rotary lawnmower as with a cylinder one.  The minimum cutting length on a rotary model is around 25mm (about 1”).  However as lawns where children play should be left longer to avoid ‘bald patches’ developing, this is not usually a problem and it also irons out the visibility of minor imperfections in unevenness of surface – it also stops the blades from risk of grounding on a higher spot.  The maximum height you can leave your grass after cutting is around 100mm (about 4”) and this is probably most suitable to wilder areas of the garden.
The very cheapest Rotary Mowers do not have a height of cut adjustment and these are probably best avoided as you will want to leave your grass longer at certain times of the year.
Another point to bear in mind with regard to the height of cut you want to achieve is that if you want your lawn to be low maintenance, you would need to cut your lawn about three times a week with a cylinder lawnmower set on the lowest setting in order to maintain the result.  You could generally get away with once a week or less with a rotary lawnmower, even allowing for the fact that you should not, as a general rule, cut more than one third off the length of your grass in one go.

Features
A Wheeled Rotary Mower is the best choice for a family garden.
Can be push-along or self propelled
Variable height of cutter blades
Key start option on some machines
Roller option if required

A Hover Petrol Lawnmower
The Hover version of a Rotary Lawnmower also uses rotating blades.  As the hover mower has no wheels, it relies on the ‘hovercraft principle’ whereby a cushion of air is generated by the spinning blades which lifts the mower off the ground and enables it to be easily manoeuvred in difficult areas such as shaped border edges, small lawns and around trees.
Hover Lawnmowers also have variable cutting heights and can cut slightly lower than a wheeled Rotary Lawnmower, down to about 10mm or ½” and the highest cut is about 40mm or 2” as with the wheeled version. Flymo have come up with a neat transport wheels set for their petrol hover mower – please see the advertisement below for this item available from Amazon UK.

Top Brands
There is a very wide choice of Rotary Petrol Lawnmowers, this type makes up the bulk of the models available.  The main UK names are Hayter, McCulloch, Atco, Mountfield and Flymo.

Other factors to consider:-

Electric Key Start?

Does it have a standard or a hydrostatic transmission?

How many gears (forward and reverse) does it have?

What is the engine size?

What is the total width including the cutting deck?

What are the cutting height parameters?  Are these correct for your requirements?

Does it have single or twin blades?

Do you have a suitable dry and secure area to store the machine?

What fuel will you need?

Big names in Ride on Lawnmowers and Tractors include, John Deere, Hayter, Husqvarna, Etesia, Kubota, Jonsered, Westwood, Countax, Massey Ferguson, Countax and Toro.

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