Reel Mowers - Going Green

So this is the first year I will have to mow my own yard. Scary huh? I mean I've mowed before for my parents but only used their mower. And now I have the issue of I have no mower! And a few dilemmas.
1) I will probably only be living here until early September at the latest most likely. But my room mate will stay here I believe.
2) Right now we have an incredibly small yard.
3) should I buy new even though I may be moving and dont really know where to or how big said yard will be.

But I want to go greener. So now I am debating between an electric and a reel. Right now I believe a reel would be no problem for us to use since our yard is so small. And I could leave it here when I move and just get it back when my room mate moves out or sell it then. But then it almost seems an electric would make more sense but I'm not sure.
The reel we are kind of looking at is This one

Any thoughts? Do any of you use reel mowers? I dont care about doing a little work when mowing the yard!

I used a reel lawn mower as a youngster many years ago. It really wasn't that bad, and I had a friend who would come by and grab a handle and we'd both push it at running speed. With 1 person pushing you have a casual walk. It's good exercise and frankly, easier to maneuver than a gas or electric mower.

Find one without the bagger if you have no problem with leaving the grass clippings as mulch in the lawn. You could put the clippings into a compost pile, but if you don't have one of those (or no garden to use it on), then you are going to have to bag the clippings and they will go into a landfill.

If you're going to go green, go all the way. We've mulched clippings into the lawn for the last 15 years.

Ours was the 50 year old version of this more contemporary style (the one in the center of the page):
http://www.ecomowers.com/Brill_Razor...FQ8gDQod5w18cQ

I don't use one now as we have 3 acres to mow. But it's a good idea to get one to use as an edger. Hmmmm.......

Back when I lived in places where I had to mow the lawn I always used one of those old push style. We had a gas one but I preferred the manual one. If you only have a small yard, go for a manual one.

Oh cool, i haven't seen one of those in years. We pretty much had the petrol mowers while i was growing up. Since we moved last year we got an electric one because our property is quite big. Not one where you have the cable out in the backyard, but you charge the battery seperately in the house then stick it into the mower. It's soo weird

my goal in life is to never mow a lawn

i would buy a goat to do it for me. seriously!

Its just so odd to think of electric mowers-I had only seem pictures of them in my english garden magazines!.

Around here the bigger the mower the better-unfortunately people are doing some serious overkill.

We have 5 acres to maintain-mowing about 2 of them.

If you have a small yard I would consider a reel mower-the only downside is that they work best on lawns that are flat and level. Plus the blades are difficult to sharpen.

Perhaps there is a enterprising youth that sells his/her lawn mowing service?

I have kind of looked into the electric ones but I'm just not sure about them yet. I may go to lowes and look around and see what they have!

Originally Posted by Meowers

my goal in life is to never mow a lawn

i would buy a goat to do it for me. seriously!

Click to expand...

HAHA I would but goats kinda scare the crap out of me... Plus they dont keep it very even lol!

Originally Posted by GailC

Its just so odd to think of electric mowers-I had only seem pictures of them in my english garden magazines!.

Around here the bigger the mower the better-unfortunately people are doing some serious overkill.

We have 5 acres to maintain-mowing about 2 of them.

If you have a small yard I would consider a reel mower-the only downside is that they work best on lawns that are flat and level. Plus the blades are difficult to sharpen.

Perhaps there is a enterprising youth that sells his/her lawn mowing service?

Click to expand...

We really cant afford to pay anyone. Our yard is very flat and very small (we live in a mobile home park) and thats why I am considering the gilmour brand because it says it is self sharpening. I will have to do some more investigating on that part though.

I live in a mobile home park and I have a reel mower I just couldn't see buying a new gas mower for my little tiny yard. I like the reel mower, it's not very hard to push around at all. One word of advice, do not let your grass get too long because then it does get difficult to push

I live on a hill, and my yard is under 1/3 of an acre.

I bought a reel mower and it takes me three days to mow the entire backyard, sides and front yard, a third at a time. But there is no one telling me what my deadline is and I don't care what anyone else thinks - as long as it gets done - and it is good exercise, to boot.

I also bought myself a "grass whip" to use on weeds on the edges as an alternative to getting a weed-whacker. Haven't used it yet, but I remember them for when I was a kid, and if they worked fine then, I see no reason NOT to use one now!