On Sun, 20 Apr 2003 23:52:34 +0100, David King wrote:

I'm a relatively new gardener with a large lawn - 90x45ft, which is pretty
uneven. I have a Webb petrol cylinder mower which is power driven, and cuts
the grass OK, but I have to empty the grass box about ten times.... I'm sure
I would be better off with a rotary mower, esp. due to the up and down
nature of my lawn, but can only really afford one which isn't driven.

Well David,

I have to say the volume of grass cut off will be about the same whichever
lawn mower you use! So no gain there. A cylinder gives a better finish
than a rotary - so I'm told - I've never used a cylinder. One thing to
look out for if you are changing your mower is a bigger grass box - that
makes an appreciable difference! I upgraded my lawn mower last year - went
from electric to petrol, from 15" to 18" on the blade size (rotary) and
the grass box was bigger coz the lawn mower was bigger - result is I'm
only emptying 2 - 3 times per mowing session and I'm mowing in 20 mins
instead of an hour.

One recommendation that I would make, is that if you do change, is to NOT
get a hover mower - they don't seem to cope as well with uneveness in the
lawn, and if you have a hill, they are (IMO) dangerous).

One other suggestion to reduce grass box emptying - when it gets full the
first time, stop the mower (waiting for the blades to stop as well), and
make sure the grass is pushed in, compacted, and filling every spare inch
of the grass box (ie. away from the chute as much as possible. - doing
this can produce some more space in the grass box, so you can mow further
before emptying. A bit of a pain, but it does work if your mower doesn't
throw the grass back into the box properly.

HTH,

Sarah