Well, one obvious thing you can do to make your mower more efficient is to keep it maintained. Regularly giving your mower a check up will hopefully help ward off surprising and unnecessary repair expenses.

Here are some things to remember while you’re mowing that will increase efficiency:

• Mowing in a circular pattern enables you to never turn the mower around, and the grass clippings are blown in. Grass clippings are excellent mulch.

• Putting some sort of mulch or ground cover around the base of the trees and shrubs keeps you from having to mow and weed eat too near your landscaping.

• Don’t mow unless it needs it. The less you mow the less money you will pour into your machinery, and the less time you spend on unnecessary chores.

• Don’t mow when the grass is wet.

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Well, obviously the most fuel efficient lawn mower would be the manual reel mower (well, if you don’t want to use the scythe), but that’s not always the best option for some households. The next most efficient mower would probably be the self-propelled reel mowers. These are kind of like push mowers, but they use the reel style blades rather than the rotary blades. The fuel efficiency continues to go down the larger you get, but that is replaced by the time you save and the convenience. There are some diesel models out there, but expect to pay more for them.

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Before we jump right into the types of lawn mowers, let’s lay down a few things that you’re going to need to know before buying a mower of any kind. Here’s a quick list:

• Size of your yard. This will help you determine how large a mower to buy.

• What kind of yard you have. Smooth and flat with nothing in the way to steep hillside with trees and rocks everywhere.

• How mechanical you are. Well, let’s face it. Pretty much every type of mower is going to need some kind of work sometime.

• What your budget is. If you have one, stick to it.

There are two main types of mowers today: reel and rotary mowers. Some people do still use scythes, but they were pretty much replaced by the reel mower in the 1830s. Reel mowers were much easier to use than scythes. Those early reel mowers were much harder to operate and maneuver than the modern styles.

Modern reel mowers are much lighter than their ancient predecessors. They are also silent, practically maintenance free, and efficient. Many people say that reel mowers are the most environmentally friendly because there is no source of energy other than yourself. Reel mowers are not without difficulties though. They don’t work on tall-ish, flexible weeds (e.g. dandelions), and they will bog down on tall grass. It’s also going to take you longer to mow your lawn with a reel mower; and if your lawn is larger than a half acre or so, reel mowers probably aren’t for you.

Push mowers can be electric or gas powered. Gas-powered mowers tend to be more powerful, but with the electric models you don’t have to deal with the mess and inconvenience of gas. The push mowers are available in both rotary and reel styles.

Riding lawn mowers are used for large yards. Most models are designed to be used with the operator sitting, but some models are stand-behind. The stand-behind models are typically used by professionals. Riding mowers have rotary blades, and they work better on longer grass.

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… for a new lawn mower?

Here’s some things we’ll look at in later posts:

• Type: From those manual scythes to the solar-powered lawn mowers that do it all.

• Efficiency: We’ll try to discover which of those lawn mowers are the most efficient.

• What can you do? Finally, we’ll work on digging things up that you can do with your current lawn mower to make it more efficient.

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