Personally, I think Honda had the best mulching mower on the market.
I've owned serval brands and now I've got a Honda Harmony purchased from
Home Depot. It will also bag and does a good job at that as well.
Mine's a self propelled (one could choose not to engage the self-propel
bar and push it I suppose). Price a couple of years ago was somewhere
between $300 and $400 and mine is not the base model. Perhaps they make
a version that does not have the self-propel feature though I don't know
why you would want to leave it off unless you are going for the lowest
possible price. The best thing about the Honda mowers is that they are
quiter than most and absolutely the easiest to start bar none. One pull
and it cranks 99.9% of the time. In fact I just had my first cutting of
the season and after sitting idle since the end of November it cranked
on the *second* pull. The pull force required to crank it is also very
low. The Honda motor just runs rings around any Briggs&Stratton and
Tecumseh motor I've ever seen.

Back to the mulching part. The Honda Harmony series has two stacked
blades that does an excellent job of mulching. Really cuts the
clippings fine and doesn't leave clumps of clippings on the lawn unless
you let the lawn get really unreasonably tall.

Good luck with your purchase no matter what you choose to buy.

Michael


Mike wrote:
I need a new push mower, not self-propelled. The major requirement is
that I want it to cut the grass cleanly and also want it to mulch
really well. Based on Consumer Reports and other research, I've
basically narrowed it down to two mowers, though I'd be open to
suggestions for others.
The two a
Toro Super Recycler #20033 (Approx. $369)
http://www.toro.com/home/mowers/supe...ler/index.html

John Deere JS60H (Approx. $399)
http://www.deere.com/en_US/ProductCa...20Mowers&tM=HO
(That link might not work appropriately...)

Both are supposed to be good at cleanly cutting the grass and also
both are supposed to do a good job with mulching.

I plan to mulch 90%+ of the time, so the fact that the JD doesn't have
a bag option doesn't really bother me.

The Toro has a 5-yr warranty and the JD has a 2-yr warranty. That
extra 3 years for the warranty is pretty nice, to be honest.

As it is, I'm probably leaning towards the Toro b/c of the warranty.
HOWEVER, I've heard bad things about Aluminum decks and the warping
that can occur, etc. So, maybe the JD is the right choice? Anyone
know what I should expect to pay for the JD?

I'd love to spend less, but, I'm tired of having crappy equipment that
doesn't last a long time and doesn't work well. I currently have a
Craftsman One-Pull or whatever and it sucks. For whatever reason, it
has never cut the grass evenly. I don't know if it doesn't have
enough suction power to pull the grass up or what, but it is awful.
I've even sharpened and replaced the blades, etc. When I bag it does
a decent job, but not when I mulch. I borrowed a friends JD last year
(about 5yrs old) to mow a couple of times and the difference was
STUNNING.

Thanks for the thoughts.
Mike