Strimmer vs Mower

Hi all

My newly seeded lawn is coming on. I gave it its second cut today. Because some parts are way ahead of others, and because its new, I figured a lawn mower would be too indiscriminate and brutal for new grass, so I borrowed my mate's strimmer. That allowed me much more control over which bits I cut and at what height.

A thought then occurred to me, for smaller, urban/suburban lawns, why do we even bother with a lawn mower. A strimmer is typically easier to store away when not in use, is much easier to control if the area to cut is not perfectly flat and square, you get much more control of the height of the cut, and I think its just as quick. You also get to do edges much more precisely than a mower allows.

So why do we just assume that a lawnmower is the best tool for cutting the grass? There must be a reason, I must be missing something I think.

 

They throw grass cuttings (to the left) all over the path and borders unless you continually make sure they are to your right. But you can use it as 'blower' to get them back off the path. Then you need to rake the cuttings up which can make the lawn look messy and in need of another strim..........

 

Agree with all the above answers ,and it is beter to have the mowings collected as leaving them on the lawn on a regular basis would cause alsorts of problems with your lawns in the long term ..Both strimmer and mow is a useful tool for lawn maintainance used in conjunction with each other ..
Dave

 

I like to use a mower with recently sharpened blades on new grass, I think a strimmer will "fray" the ends of the grass leaves.

Rolling the grass will help too (my cylinder mower has a roller) as it will encourage the grass to "tiller"

 

How new, is newly seeded?

 

To be honest, if it was only seeded this year, I wouldn`t even consider cutting it until next month at the earliest. And certainly not with a strimmer.

 

Thanks for the opinions all. I think I will get a new mower at some point, but for the short term I think I'll keep strimming it.

I've looked at hand powered mowers, and I like the idea, if only for the convenience of easy storage and no power cable getting in the way. I might get one at some point.

A couple of months ago. I followed advice written by Alan Titchmarsh, in that I waited til it was about 8cm long before giving it its first cut, and took off the top 3cm, and then gradually take it lower and lower with each subsequent cut.

Following my gut instinct, I've not taken it any lower than about 4cm though during this dry spell we're having, so as to let the grass keep the sun off the soil so it doesn't dry out while the roots are still young.

 

It was sown in February? And you are STRIMMING it? Let it mature, first.

 

Whilst on this subject, does anybody else use rubber brushcutter blades on their strimmer (assuming it will take brushcutter attachments) as these will cut grass neater than strimmer line, not throw the cuttings everywhere, nor cause anything like as much damage to surrounding objects as if touched with a metal blade?

 

Brushcutter blades are sharpened discs. Not little plastic things.

 

Had those on a brush cutter a long time ago - although they were plastic. In theory they would swivel out of the way if they hit anything solid, in practice they just broke and were a waste of time (compared to nylon cord, but I don't think we had that option way-back-then). Rubber sounds like it might work ... but I'm not convinced!

 

Here's (OK, not rubber, but it's) my bendy nylon one:



They're £10.80 each from mowermagic (they call them "universal plastic brushcutter blade - 8 point"), but I got mine for £1 each at a car boot.